If I continually focus on what I don’t have, my life will always be completely empty despite the fact that it’s completely full.

Today I must look in the mirror and be thankful for the person who I find staring back at me. For although the reflection is terribly imperfect, and I know that full well, God created it with enough room that one day it would be perfect. And if there is nothing else I can find to be thankful for, let me begin here.

To savor the simple privilege that every day I have a sunrise to bathe in, a storehouse of opportunities to romp through, the thick wrap of relationships to keep me warm, a God who meticulously tends to every detail round about me, and it all costs me not a dime. What madness would keep me from being eternally thankful for all that?

The greatest accomplishment of all is to recognize that we were freely handed two extraordinary gifts that we had no part in creating. The first is a talent to cultivate, and the second is the opportunity to cultivate it.