Sunday, November 18, 2007

Thanks for Nothing

It's that time a year. Thanksgiving. Where we take a look into our lives and you may ask, "what am I thankful for?" I am sure by the title of this post you just might think this particular blog is going nowhere good. Well, indulge me for just a few paragraphs, I have had a lot of time to think about "thankfulness" in the last week.

It was one week ago, last Sunday that I was cycling with a group of 10 in Austin and I was part of a pretty nasty bike accident. Nasty in that I probably took the worst spill out of 4 of us that got thrown off our bikes. After CT scans, X-rays, Dr. visits, Physical Therapist, more x-rays, sleepless nights, not being able to get comfortable I came to a very Grinch like place where I was saying, "Thanks for Nothing" In other words, Negative Nay-Nay had emerged and it was not pretty. Even though Dr's said to stay positive, I was tired of prednisone, Motrin, drink water, lay flat for four days, no doing ANYTHING. As most of you can probably tell at this point....not fun for Colleen. Still don't know what the complete outcome will be....the main diagnosis being is my back is really hurting and I have some numbness along the right side of my body....I can't get an MRI done for another week to see what kind of nerve damage there might be. So that is the update that is my bike accident.

By now you are probably saying...GET TO THE POINT WILSON!!!! So, yes, thankfulness.

(insert long dramatic pause)

I need to be honest, I started to blame everything around me for my pain.... Not a good place to be. And in all of this, I realized....
"Colleen, you are selfish, not thankful."

So now I will share my thoughts that are thankfulness.

Why do we wait until this ONE day a year, the 3rd Thursday of November to BE THANKFUL??

Yes, you could give me the whole pilgrim/indians/picnic answer but I mean why such a build for this one day??

What if....what if we chose to be thankful the other 364 days of the year that Thanksgiving was truly a celebration of that?

What if giving thanks meant transformation not just participation?

Are you following me? Are you seeing it? We can change just by giving thanks!!! We can be transformed people because we give thanks for everyday, normal things and people. Try it. Just one day. (and this Thursday doesn't count) What if you called a family member in April and told them why you are thankful? What if you did this with a friend? Wouldn't their lives be changed? See it works both ways.

I believe that an internal spirit of thankfulness equals change....and can cause healing.

Let's remember what happened to the Grinch at the end of the story..."And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day."

Who doesn't want that? What is stopping you from being thankful and are you willing to change that?

Cause I am.

1 comment:

Brian Kirk said...

do the "Thanks," that show up in daily (normally work) e-mails count?

i really hope your back is OK. i know you've worked so hard to begin training for next year's CDA ironman.