Gratitudes, 2021 edition

I'm bringing this back.

Back in the early days of this blog, I had an annual tradition of sharing on Thanksgiving (or at least, the week of) the things I'm thankful for. [Click here, here, and here to check them out.] After a few years, I got off track.

A lot has changed in my life and more importantly in my outlook, regarding things I was actually grateful for, but also what my truth was about myself, my life, and my outlook at the time.

As I pointed out when I brought this blog back in 2019, I've chosen to not bring back all posts from the first era of blogging (2005-2013), largely because, as time went on, I saw how more jaded I had become in my outlook. This was also true with how I wrote my thanksgiving posts. When I was in college, I think I had found more reasons to be thankful, and looking back through those posts, those felt genuine. As such, I have chosen to share them on this blog.

However, after I graduated and was out in the world trying to figure out life as an adult, I either didn't post a list of things I was grateful for on Thanksgiving, or when I did, the posts were largely sarcastic exposés related to why I should even consider being thankful (but trying to pass it off as appearing to be thankful), and then quickly listing the things I was thankful for. As of now, I have decided not to re-share those particular posts. The person that wrote those posts, that's not who I want to be anymore. I had a lot of healing and straightening out to do. I wasn't saved. I knew about God and about Jesus, but didn't believe that He cared about me, and even if He did, He wouldn't even bother to show up and help me, let alone grant me things I desired and longed for. I've come to realize that all those things were false. Rather, the truth is that God cares, He shows up, He helps me, and He has granted me things I have desired and longed for. Thus, my list:

1. I'm grateful for my church, Good News Christian Center, and for it being a loving and supportive community for me ever since I joined.
2. I'm grateful for my pastor. Not only are the things he preaches true and powerful and full of the Holy Spirit's anointing every single time, but, unlike every previous priest, rector, or senior pastor of churches I've previously regularly attended and become a member, I feel like he invests in me every time we meet and chat. (Granted, we don't meet all the time, and we only really meet once in a while, but still, this feels way different from anyone else before.)
3. I'm grateful for my current temp job, especially in the midst of changing careers and figuring out my new career.
4. I'm grateful for my mom and stepdad, with whom my relationship has been much better the last couple years vs the previous however many (far too many to count).
5. I'm grateful for my love's parents, who have put me up since being in the hospital over the summer, and for allowing me to somewhat cull my expenses by being there. I'm also grateful for how they have embraced me as part of the family, considering that down the line I will become their son-in-law.
6. I'm grateful for the longtime friends I still keep in touch with, even after graduating therapy, and even after switching churches. I even have one friend from college with whom we still make time once in a while to catch up and chat.
7. I'm grateful for my dad. In addition to just simply being grateful for him, I'm also grateful for the relationship I've gotten to have with him, after not allowing myself to have had much of a relationship with him for a long time. I'm grateful for all the years and memories and learning experiences I've gotten to share with him.
8. I am of course grateful for my love. She has played a big role in turning my life around for the better, and for helping me steer the course of my life in a different and better direction, particularly during the COVID era and all of its instability. And of course, I'm grateful for her because she's a woman I love and want to make all sorts of long-range plans and dreams with. For many years I pined for this, for her. While we are not married yet, even 1 year and 9 months from our first date, she still checks so many boxes for me, and she checks all the important ones.
9. And of course, I'm grateful for God, for Jesus's sacrifice, for His redemption, for His mercy and grace and forgiveness, and for His not giving up on me. Two years ago, even though I had gotten saved, gotten baptized, spent years in counseling, my attitude and outlook was still garbage and so full of deep false beliefs that I hadn't realized I still had not renounced at all, lies that were still getting in the way of my trusting God. He could've left me for dead. But He didn't. And because of Him, I'm still here today, able to tell you all the other things I'm grateful for.

There are more, but these are the big ones. I could probably take a whole week trying to think of and come up with all the various little things I'm grateful for. But, I still gotta keep rolling and pursuing all the things before me.