Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and I want to give a shout out to all my friends in Nashville and all around the country.  I’m thankful for you, your input, your support, your love, and just being a part of my life.

This Thanksgiving I am thanking God for a lot of things, but for some reason, the thing that dominates my mind is the gratitude to God for things I haven’t done.

Like, not leaving my wife all those times when we both were so frustrated with each other we didn’t know what to do.  We stayed committed to our commitment.  The covenant we made when we were 18 years old has held us together all these years.  And we’ve stayed together through the rough times and the stressful times, through the times when it would’ve been easier (at least in our minds) to walk away.  I want to thank God that we didn’t.  I thank God that we didn’t divorce.  I thank God that we didn’t turn our love and affection toward other people; that we kept our hearts true to each other and worked through our frustrations.

I also thank God that I didn’t quit three and a half years ago when I went through one of the darkest times of my life.  Thank God that I didn’t retreat into bitterness and anger, but allowed people to love me, carry me, and support me in a way that has overwhelmed me.

I thank God that I didn’t turn my back on the church; that I didn’t turn my back on good Christian people who live exactly what they say they believe, who will love you if you give them half a chance.

I thank God that I didn’t give up on joy.  It’s taken these years to really find the original joy expressed in having fun.  Yeah, fun is one of the greatest gifts God will ever give you.

I’ve learned how to put fun back in my work and my calling; how to put fun back in my relationships, and most of all, I’ve learned how to make my marriage fun again.

I love Paula.  I love being with her.  I love who I am and what I become when I am around her.  We have fun these days. Finally, after 37 years of marriage, we have fun.  We have fun doing our work, we have fun loving our kids, we have fun just being human, being here, and being happy.

So this year I am thanking God for the things I didn’t do. Sometimes the things you don’t do, the temptations you don’t give into, or the urges you don’t follow, grow into your greatest blessing.  I love you guys.  Happy Thanksgiving!  Better days are ahead; better than you can imagine, and more fun than a human ought to be having.