Clothed in right mind with strength, health

Count your blessings. Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence.

-- Og Mandino

I have a lot to be thankful for. Maybe you do, too. I am thankful for my wife of 31 years, for family and for friends, for life, opportunity and good health. I am thankful for those who pray and those who do good for others. I am thankful for the encouragement they provide in word and deed. And I am thankful for the lessons I learned growing up, even when I didn't understand what I was learning at the time.

Looking back over 2008, an old adage came to mind that comes mostly from church folk, the elders, who have traveled the road I am traveling now. I understand what they meant when they said: "I woke up this morning clothed in my right mind, with a reasonable portion of strength and health."

A friend agreed. "They got it right," he said. "I too am thankful for God's incredible mercy and grace. I continue to get more than I deserve, whether it is health, friendship, love or forgiveness."

I woke up this morning. I am in reasonably good health. A few aches and pains, but that comes with the journey of living. Time changes our mental and physical capabilities. If you live long enough, you will change too, my grandfather once said to a little boy who had told him he was old. Not only will you change, you might come to appreciate life's journey more.

I asked several people what they thought the saying meant and what they were thankful for. "To me it means my mind is fit and I am capable," one friend said. Another said that, like me, the older he becomes, the more it makes sense. "At this time, I am thankful for all of the blessings of this past year, even those that I did not adequately appreciate when I first received them," he said.

That was a common theme. Another person said, "The adage appears to acknowledge and respect one's blessings in life." He is most thankful, for "the wisdom in understanding the experiences that have continued to evolve and shape my optimism concerning my life's purpose, relationships and my intimacy with my God. I am so thankful that he loves me more than I love myself."

"This is a great question," replied a young woman. She is "truly blessed" and "supplied with the basic essentials that are needed in life," she said. "I definitely do not deserve all of the things that I have been provided with, but I make sure to tell God ‘Thank you' for everything that he has provided."

"Thanks for the opportunity to ponder and to search a little deeper," another friend told me. Last year was "tumultuous," but she is "so very thankful to have come through it a bit wiser." She is thankful for her family and knowing that someone cares for her as deeply as she does for them, and for children. They see life for what it is, she said, without rose-colored glasses.

Another friend reflected on his life, too. "I've seen people who wear the same clothes every day -- because that's all they had. I've seen people that would love to have the piece of bread I've thrown away so many times -- the heel, the piece that nobody wants. I've seen people who were going to die because they couldn't afford the cost of the medicine to keep them alive," he said.

So, what does the saying mean to him? "I think it is knowing in my heart that I have always had more than a reasonable portion of everything ... for reasons I can never understand." I think I better understand what the old folk were saying now. It is captured best in this response by another friend: "I am thankful to God who gives me, even today, a portion of what He has promised in the life hereafter."

■ Nigel Alston is a Dale Carnegie trainer and motivational speaker who lives in Winston-Salem. He can be reached at nalston1@triad.rr.com.