To be Gracious

I want to share a very personal story with all of you, it’s a story about my mom. I know I have mentioned her in posts before but it’s always about food or a brief mention of her and that isn’t because she wasn’t important to me, it’s because she was the most important person in the world to me and it’s hard to share stories.

My mom didn’t have the best childhood, to be honest it was down right awful but she was able to overcome how she was raised and was able to raise her children to be respectful and gracious. The lesson of grace is a lesson that a lot of people are missing this day in age. Technology is overtaking us and creating short attention spans coupled with instant gratification and resulting in a lack of graciousness.

I was raised to say please and thank you and to mean it by understanding what that person was doing for me. It isn’t uncommon for people to say “thanks” in a half hearted attempt to be polite but the words THANK YOU should have more meaning and sentiment behind them.

In late 2009 my mother was diagnosed with ALS and had a rapid decent into the disease. She deteriorated immensely in such a short amount of time that it was hard for me to grasp. This strong, confident leader that I had the pleasure of calling my mother was quickly becoming an invalid right before my eyes. Sadly, it wasn’t long before she lost her ability to speak and yet she still had grace.

My mom was losing everything she knew, her independence, her voice, her mobility, her strength and yet she still took the time to learn how to say thank you in sign language. Even with everything she was loosing, she still continued to teach me the importance of being gracious. This simple gesture that we so often overlook has an impact on those around us and watching my mom teach that lesson until her last days is something I will never forget.

I know how easy it is to take advantage of what you have because I do it myself. My passion for fitness grew from the loss of my mom and seeing how much I was blessed with and how I was wasting my gifts. Not everyone has the ability to speak, walk, comprehend simple things, etc. but everyone has the ability to be thankful, to be appreciative and to be gracious.

I have so many blessings in my life and so much to be thankful for. I try my best to tell those in my life how much I appreciate them because what if those around us never knew how much they mean to us? Not just a simple “thanks” but a true and honest, THANK YOU for being my friend, my husband, my partner in crime or what ever those people are to you. A thank you should have weight behind it and purpose, it should be sincere and heart felt and most importantly, it should be true.

Thank you mom for giving me the understanding of what it means to be thankful and to appreciate all that I have been given in life. Thank you to my friends for sticking with me through thick and thin and through bad days and good days. Thank you to my family for being who you are and who I need you to be. Thank you to my husband for being my favorite everything. Thank you to my followers for taking the time from your lives to hear my stories. Thank you Lord, for giving me another day. Thank you.