for a reason. It represents something I recently realized and was

brother in our church, to visit a number of families each month.

The visits usually amount to a lesson of some sort and questions

of, “How are things? Is there anything we can do for you?” Three of

the families my companion and I visit are shut-ins, and are

comfortable, but have health issues. There is a lot we can do for

them even if they tell us they don’t need anything. With the

holiday of Thanksgiving near, I challenged myself to do something

for them in place of the usual pretty thoughts of, “You have so

is a Thanksgiving tradition in our family, gotten us to trace

around our spread hands with a dark marker onto a piece of

construction paper, and adding an eye, two feet, a beak, and a

gobbler’s beard, you have a turkey with a fanned tail. You probably

have done this in elementary school, but the Admiral adds

hand-traced turkeys, “write in each finger, something you are

thankful for.” Maybe the first year, we wrote only five things, but

it has grown now to the point that we create ways to write ALL the

things we have reason to be thankful for. My favorite is to write

them all in tiny print without a break up one finger, down the

other side, on up the next finger until I have traced the margin of

the turkey with all the things for which I am thankful. There are

too many in my life to limit the exercise to just

shut-ins, and helped them trace their hands, then did the same

thing the Admiral does; I told them to write things for which they

are thankful. Being in less than good health, I thought they might

be encouraged to count their blessings, and they were. The surprise

was that they were so thankful for my silly idea and me. That got

me to thinking. I had given them something to make them thankful. I

like them, or anyone needing encouragement, or a lift, we can give,

and be thankful we can. Every one of you reading this knows someone

who is less blessed than you are. Why not GIVE them a call, or

better yet, GIVE them a visit? What you can GIVE may only be a

smile, but everyone can GIVE somebody

more I came to know that it is the simple acts of service and

sacrifice that make my life so rich. I am thankful for the time

that others have taken to say a kind word to me, a word of

encouragement, a call wanting to know how I am, and nothing lights

up my soul like a sincere, warm smile. It is the small, simple

things that are the foundation for our thankfulness. These small,

simple things are what the greater things in our lives, like family

this Thanksgiving season. Go serve meals at a mission or church

function, open your home to someone who does not have family here

and include them in yours, or take a plate to someone who won't

have the season’s fixin’s without your giving

certain we all have much to recount and be thankful for, but

wouldn’t it be nice if you had just one more thing to add to your

turkey? Sure it would. You can get it by giving of yourself. It is,

after all, the season for Thanks AND