While Thanksgiving is still a few weeks away, I’m 100 percent prepared to answer the traditional question, “What are you thankful for?”

My answer has nothing to do with colorful, harvest-filled farmers’ markets. It isn’t my college education, my trip to Czech this summer or even the bed I sleep in.

By now you might be thinking, ‘Whatever Taylor is thankful for, she sure is leaving out some of the essential things that she should be thankful for!‘

But fret not, I assure you this one is a good.

I am thankful for the gift of life. (Not a cop-out answer! Hear me out on this one…)

When I was in high school, I had a teacher who allowed us to start our class in prayer. I always loved this part of class, as it was a chance to hear about my classmates’ lives – to be conscious of their hopes, their trails and their struggles.

Without fail, my teacher would always end our prayer time with this statement, “But most importantly, we are thankful for the gift of life itself.”

The first time I heard him say this, I thought, ‘Well, duh!’ I was sure that everyone was thankful to be alive. Isn’t that just a give-in?

But it’s really not.

How often do you take the time to thank God for creating you? Because He could have created an infinite number of other people, but He created you. YOU! He created you with a purpose. The plans He has for are “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” Jeremiah 29:11.

Do you live you life with those words written across your heart? Do you get up and grumble about the rainy weather, or do you fill your lungs with air and realize how miraculous it is that you are living – that you have the opportunity to experience life on Earth?

This afternoon, I was listening to the radio and heard the song “Good to be Alive,” by Jason Gray. The song starts like this: “Hold on, is this really the life I’m living? Cause I don’t feel like I deserve it. Every day that I wake, every breath that I take you’ve given.”

Woah. Did you catch that? Every breath that we take is a gift. The average person takes over 17,000 breaths each day.  Each one of those breaths equals a life sustaining force. And because we never know when our last breath will be, each one is truly a gift.

Gray goes on to say this, which really hit me as I was driving past the city skyscrapers…
“I won’t take it for granted
I won’t waste another second
All I want is to give you
A life well lived, to say ‘thank you’ ”

With that, are you living your life as worthy of being called a “thank you” for the gift of being alive? While I’m thankful for an insane amount of things, if I don’t remember to be thankful for the gift of life itself, then I’m really taking my life for granted, aren’t I.

Hear Jason Gray talk about his song, “Good to be Alive”