We wish you a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.
In a year of devastation and brutal savagery, it's easy to focus on the negatives rather than the positive, and lose track of the good things around us that we should be thankful for. Sometimes these things are small, such as the drops of rain that helped relieved the drought here in California. Other times, you can't miss it - such as the return home of an American soldier from a Mexican prison. There are plenty of silver patches in these dark clouds.
For me and my family, I'm ever so grateful for how far we've come in a year. From nearly losing everything, to building a great life on the outskirts of the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, it's a radically different year for us. As hard as it is out here, I tell my children, it's a testament to what education can do for you when you put your mind to it. Now, I'm blessed with a job that I love, that fits my life and talents. A job that puts life giving electricity into homes across the entire nation - and a company that's put me on path to even greater heights.
Never stop learning.
God has given us all this amazingly complex brain,
we should be thankful we aren't animals,
or even vegetables - with no deeper thought process.
So give thanks to the Lord.
Give thanks that he has given us all us gifts and has brought us to these times.
Because, for as bad as it may seem, we still live in a spectacular time.
The issues of our world would seem so minor to pilgrims.
For them, death and savagery was all around. They didn't flee to America expecting it to be better than Europe. For them, it was a great endeavor, incurred at terrible expense of both personal effort and debt. All in the slight chance that it would be better for them at the end of their short lives, or better for their child.
Thanks to these great people, we are no longer pilgrims.
We are American citizens.
So let's be thankful we have the Constitution and it's Bill of Rights that protects us,
Let's be thankful that we have the benefit of hundreds of years of freedom and innovation.
And let us never stop using these gifts endowed by our Creator,
It's our responsibility to act as beacons of light in these dark times.
And most of all,
never forget that our grandfathers and mothers fought and defeated the Nazis and Communists,
If we could beat those Son of Guns, then we can beat anyone.
No matter what Hollywood may say, G-d is always on the side of the Righteous.
Happy Thanksgiving.
