I’m someone who thinks and talks a lot about thankfulness and praising God for all my blessings. I haven’t always been that way, though. I guess we all live and learn, and certainly events in my life have shaped how thankful I am now…specifically my mommy’s fight with cancer.

I am thankful for much in my life – people and even stuff. I’m thankful for my family and friends and job and home and on and on and on. Some people would say you shouldn’t be thankful for material things, but I will not lie, I’m grateful for the conveniences and fun our life provides. My life is nice and pleasant, and I know the Lord has been too sweet to me.

The kind of thankfulness I learned because of mommy, though, wasn’t for things or even people. It’s probably one of the most important kinds of thankfulness any of us can have, and I do believe that most people don’t even think about it. For CERTAIN, I was not thankful for this until Mommy was diagnosed with lymphoma.

This is a thankfulness for health and the health of our families.

Talk about taking something for granted. I would bet if there’s a list of stuff most people aren’t grateful enough for in the world, health is at the top of that list.

It DEFINITELY was for me.

I don’t think most people recognize that without health, nothing else really matters.

It doesn’t matter how much money you have or how big your house is or how many likes you get on Facebook or how pretty you are or how fancy your car is or how important you are at your job.

All those are things we desire, and they’re sure nice to have, but they just flat out don’t matter when we’re not healthy. When we’re UNhealthy, that is ALL that matters.

Being healthy can mean something as simple as having the ability to walk around and get where you want to go.

How many days in my life did I go without thanking the Lord for THAT?

SO. MANY.

Before Mommy got sick, she was just like all of us living life, and she enjoyed every minute of it.

And then she got sick, and everything changed.

I’m embarrassed to say the day they told me she was sick was NOT the day I realized I wasn’t as grateful for my health as I needed to be.

I do know the exact moment in time when it happened, though.

I was waiting outside Casa Ole for an order one evening after spending the day shopping. I called the order in, and it wasn’t ready when I got there. I went out to my car to wait, and I was aggravated. Of course I didn’t act ugly to the people, but I sure told my husband about it and was not happy I was having to sit there. Then a thought popped in my mind that was not my own…I envisioned my poor little mommy who was home after a long hospital stay at MDA. By that time, she had lost the ability to drive because of her poor vision and difficulty in thinking and remembering. She couldn’t do any of the things I had done all day long.

What would she have given to drive herself to a restaurant to order food and wait in her own car or even feed herSELF the food?

I bet she would’ve given every single thing she had to have her health back, and I’ll tell you what, I bet the rest of us would’ve given all we had to get her health back, too.

Gosh, I think we still would.

That was the moment I knew – I was NOT thankful for my health, and I sure needed to be. Because God had given me my HEALTH, I was able to go and do and love and laugh and work and LIVE.

That was the day I literally started thanking God every single day of my life, multiple times a day, for my health and the health of my family.

Isn’t it funny how God uses the oddest of circumstances to teach us the biggest of lessons?

My life-changing moment, the one when God gave me clarity on the blessing of my health, just happened to be in the parking lot at Casa Ole.

If you haven’t thanked the Lord for your health today – do.

And then start doing it every day from here on out.

Health is one of our absolute greatest gifts from God.

Man. I’m SO thankful.