At seventeen I remember being in a car heading to the mall with friends and thinking how grateful I was to be me.  Me was living in a foster home, my dad had recently passed on and my mom was newly out of recovery, working to get her six children together under one roof. I never had a home per say, but I felt loved. And I was organically grateful for the things I did have. Of course, life has happened, cumulative events that made me work at my state of gratefulness. One day, from a darker place of the soul, I penned tuG after my journal entry. Shorthand for thank you God.

And tuG was birthed. 

I didn’t come from a lot, yet gratefulness makes what you have enough, it’s a launching pad, for one doesn’t go to abundance it comes from it. And it all starts in the mind and heart. And abundance doesn’t mean only financial abundance.

On this journey to be grounded in gratefulness do I have questions; do I struggle at times? Absolutely!

How can one be grateful when they have lost a loved one, a child? How can one be grateful as they receive a terminal diagnosis or someone close to them does? How can one be grateful as they are being evicted from their home or don’t have money to feed their children? And the list could go on.

For me a tangible, ongoing relationship with God strengthens my faith as I know this human experience is a part of something bigger, and while I am in this human experience, I will make the most of it, help others, leave a legacy; and one day the questions above will be answered.

Thank you and thank you God.