White Friday Reflections

Thanksgiving is over and looking out my window it’s a “White Friday”here in northern Minnesota USA.

It’s a sad sight as a fisherman knowing ice is now forming on the lakes. The outside gauge reads 17 degrees. I’m not sure why I thought I could take the boat out one last time before winter.

Meanwhile I am still reflecting on a growing concept of thankfulness. I tend to be a mediocre person in this area. I think it helps to have a list of “Things I am thankful for” to make me feel better about myself. Being somewhat creative I give myself an “A” as I can come up with several pages (in large print).  However, I just finished a couple of weeks in the woods deer hunting and have a different perspective on this topic. It’s a picture of a squirrel!

Can’t see it can you. From this perspective the squirrel is a minute detail in the pixels of the picture. From my perch in the woods I can rotate 360 degrees. My perspective changes every degree of rotation. So in reality I took a picture of life with one tiny squirrel in it (that I could see). Life with all it’s distractions, tangles, possibilities, lurking dangers, and camouflaged opportunities.

    If I could take out a couple of small trees from the picture we would all see the big grey squirrel sitting on his limb in the very center of the picture facing me and bawling me out for being in his tree. Another approach is to move about two feet and my whole perspective would change and we would see the squirrel. Sometimes it is we who need to move to see whats really there. The possibilities of getting our perspective on this tiny topic of thankfulness (like a little squirrel) are endless. So many things get in the way.

Is it possible to look at every degree of our perspective and be thankful for who we are, where we are, and what we have? Is it possible to have 360 degrees of thankfulness?

Maybe I should just stick to my little lists of what I’m thankful for and hopefully keep adding more than I cross off.  I read in my Bible the other morning (a good way to start my day before going to work) that the mark of one who truly is a follower of Jesus (my paraphrase) is overflowing with thankfulness.  Maybe thankfulness should be a part of my character that distinguishes me as a person no matter the view of life I am seeing today.