Column: Caught My Eye, Crossed My Mind: Subject – Annual Reminder – We Should Be Thankful All Year Long

By: Forrest R. Church, Publisher
THE VILLAGE REPORTER

I saw someone on social media last week mention how it felt like yesterday was the first day of November, yet in a blink of an eye, here we are experiencing the week of Thanksgiving.  So true!

With the network issues we have had taking every free moment at the office I’ve had, I honestly thought we had another newspaper edition left before Thanksgiving.  It is a good thing others at the office keep me on the straight and narrow or your Thanksgiving news-paper edition may have arrived the first week of December.  Does anybody else think this year has passed by extremely quickly?

THANKSGIVING

I always enjoy Thanksgiving; it is a holiday with a little less pagan traditions which are often largely surrounded by gifting of cheap communist toys.  I think we would all be better off if we woke up each day and focused on the blessings in our lives instead of constantly dwelling on difficulties.

Last week I was complaining about missing a early annual family Thanks-giving in Angola because the network issues were creating havoc in our office. I had people waiting on me to provide files normally accessible by the network and our press deadline was 24 hours away, I just should not make it happen.

At the end of the day I should have called a time out on the complaining and reflected; replacing the complaint with gratitude.  Although I am still “salty” that nobody packed a “to go” plate for the guy stuck at work.  Beware family, there will be some forthcoming direction on the error of your ways on that move, LOL.  This guy that is not allowed carbs or sugar was fully ready to make himself sick over a piece of pumpkin pie that I thought about all day long.

GUILTY

I’m often guilty of focusing on some-thing (like the network issues) that is irritating and creating discomfort rather than focusing on everything else around me/us that is a complete blessing.

Starting off the day thankful for enough money to buy coffee grinds to make a pot of coffee is something many in world lack should be considered.

Having clean water and even warm water to take a shower is a blessing, something that many in Africa do not experience as they gather water from a disease filled water ways.

Everywhere you look, as Americans, we are surrounded with blessings that many in the world lack.  May we always realize just how blessed we truly are and focus on them not just this week, but daily, maybe even hourly.

FINALLY MOWED!

Talking about small blessings, I’ve mentioned a lot in my columns that I believe “traction = satisfaction”.  I have not been able to keep up professionally and personally on endless tasks.  Liter-ally everywhere I look I’m overwhelmed with “to do’s”.

So, as I took a break from yelling at our network at the newspaper mid-week and needing to give it some time to transfer material on its own, I was finally able to jump on the mower.  I’m not sure when the last time I mowed this year was, but the grass was as long as I’ve ever allowed it to grow.  It might have been the last week of August?!?

When I have a free moment at 3 a.m. and I think about the need to catch up on the lawn (or other outside tasks), I’m pretty sure the neighbors do not want me mowing in pitch dark while they sleep.

So, last week I set the mower deck about halfway up and went as fast as I could go to knock down what appears to be more of a hay field than a yard.  It looks terrible, it is going to get cold and snow this week, I don’t care —feels good to have something completed.

I was even able to winterize the camper to prevent freezing pipes, though I did a bit of grumbling as I promised myself we would go camping this year at some local State Parks; yet the wheels never moved an inch.

Side note, isn’t it interesting we live in an area of the world where we mow one week, and it snows the next?

DOOM DOOM WEATHER DOOM!

A Facebook post I made last week as I noted an annual weather forecast observation: Anybody want to bet a cup of coffee that there will NOT be a massive crippling snowstorm around Thanks-giving? Every year social media participants start sharing this stuff when it first starts turning colder. 12 inches of snow forecasted ends up being a dusting. I’ve seen that recent forecast model shared 100 times showing heavy snow and I think it’s probably wrong again this year. It does look to be cold, if that counts. Just an annual observation I’ve noticed over the years.

As this column publishes and it mailed inside this week’s edition, we will see if the great Thanksgiving Snow-storm of 2023 develops or if this was just more hype shared online.

I saw some saying 12 inches of the white stuff will fall on Black Friday via a popular weather model.  Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, or maybe this is just another year of hype shared on social media?

AN OLD FRIEND VISITS

Keeping with the reflection theme, we typically have 1-2 evenings a week off from our newspaper tasks and/or something going on with the kids per week.  Those are treasured times, and we tend to plan for them all week long.  This past week I had and old ministry friend that I went through training with in Central Florida back in the late 90’s visit as he was in the Ohio / Michigan area.

He had been to our neck of the woods before.  He was in our wedding in 2002 (see Casey, I can remember the year) and also came up for a large “Jesus 99” event I hosted which was an all day youth festival and was the first time I met him and several other guys I ended up going through training with.  But this was the first time in a few de-cades that he returned to our part of the country and I enjoyed every minute of it.

It was an interesting time in my life living with him and others going through our ministry training program (Timothy Ministries).  I was a white farm boy from Ohio who loved football and chicken wings.  We had a Puerto Rican via the Bronx, New York.  A Brit from Liverpool, England.  A red head from Kansas.  And another from Israel via South Africa.  Yes, we lived together.  All single guys and very different.  We were not supposed to date girls, we fought, prayed, argued, interceded, held each other accountable and helped one an-other gain a foothold on what life had in store for them.

As I sat reflecting with my friend last week, all I can say is it has been an amazing journey the Lord has taken us.  It was a great time of reflection and helped me break out of my feeling sorry for myself funk over this possessed net-work issue.

Well, that is it for this week.  I wish all readers a “Happy Thanksgiving”.  I encourage you to see if there are others in your circle that may be blessed with a shared meal, there are many around who are lonely this time of year and could use the fellowship.  Maybe keep an open eye out?

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I’d love to hear from you. As always, feel free to reach out to me at publisher@ thevillagereporter.com or via mail at 115 Broad Street, Montpelier, Ohio 43543.

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Source: The Village Reporter