Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever.

- Psalms 136:1

In my family, Thanksgiving always comes before Christmas. There is no setting up the Christmas tree before Thanksgiving, and not one red and green decoration set up prior to this date. Thanksgiving is a day, in my family, where there is joy, pure joy, and gratefulness (also a lot of football, but that's not important). Even if not all of my family is present, you find a way for them to be there. If that means making a phone call to Alabama, or skyping to Afghanistan, you make it happen.

Last year was a quite difficult for my family. My dad, at the time 38 years of age, decided it was his duty to join the Navy. In July, my dad was off to Chicago for his boot camp training. While this doesn't seem like much, and it really isn't because so many men and women go off thousands of miles to give their lives for our country, it was hard. He was only supposed to be gone for about 12 weeks. However, after graduating boot camp, he was held back in arriving at the Navy "A" school. We were not expecting him to come back to our little town in Texas until early December. That was the hard part. Waiting. Luckily, though, at this point, we were able to skype him- at times.

I remember crying on the first day of school because my "daddy" wasn't there to see me off to my sophomore year. He wasn't there for our first football game in October. And then November came. Our marching band had made it to state. I remember at our area competition, calling my dad as results were announced. He had just as much adrenaline as I did. As they called our name, it was hard to hold onto the phone, I was jumping up and down so much. And there he was, even though he was across the country, he was still jumping up and down with me.

A week before Thanksgiving came, we received the news that my dad would be coming home a week, to two weeks before his release date. He would be flying in late the night before Thanksgiving. Needless to say, Thanksgiving was the best it had ever been.

Last Thanksgiving, and this year as well, I was lucky enough to have my dad sitting at the same table as me. However, so many families sat at their own table fatherless, or motherless, or daughterless, or sonless. But, those families are the families that are the most thankful. They realize that the life that they have is priceless. The turkey that they are eating is precious. The cranberries sitting on the plate in front of them is valuable.