What are you thankful for?

It’s Thanksgiving Monday here in Canada. We celebrate it a full six weeks earlier than the United States. The days are shorter, the air is nippier but usually there’s no snow. No such luck this year. Most of the province was blanketed with anywhere from a few inches to a foot of the stuff. A lot of farmers still have their crops lying in the field. Who knows when they’ll get to it. Maybe at Christmas time, maybe the spring. If their machinery can even get if off. Most farmers are insured, so they’ll get their money back but they won’t make money. Next province over, in Saskatchewan, bumper crops of wheat at one hundred bushels per acre are laying there.It’s not called next-year country for nothing.Alberta itself is in an economic slump, the worst in all of Canada. Our house hasn’t escaped the downturn, either. And there have been other challenges, too. I won’t go into them because my point isn’t too garner sympathy. My point is to be thankful for the one quality that has served me well. Yep, you got it–grit.Maybe I picked up my bushel of grit during my childhood on the farm when you did what had to be done because there was no one else to do it or because everyone else was taking care of their own chores, where bad weather came. All. The. Time. A hailstorm, a drought, early snow, too much rain.I learned to bear down, gather resources, bide my time, watch for opportunities, think twice, think ahead, double-check,  do without, make do, do what you can, enjoy the small stuff and above all, dream. Because people with grit dream. All. The. Time. Not of the past. But of what their God-given grit will reward them when the storms pass and the crop is finally reaped.