By Kelly Young

Guest columnist

In a world where many men feel the need to drive the biggest truck on the block, many women absolutely must wear the chicest clothes each season and people everywhere are working themselves to the bone so they can afford that one toy that will make their lives complete — I’ve always been a fairly contented individual.

For the most part, I have always been pretty satisfied with what the Lord has given me, and have been perfectly happy with the greenness of the grass on my own side of the fence.

For some reason, this year, one which has been rife with unexpected changes and several big moments in my personal life, I have found myself feeling even more grateful for my blessings than usual.

Repeatedly during the past few months, during pensive moments, I have been poignantly struck by just how good I have it.

Not because anything about my life is particularly impressive, but because — if we allow ourselves to see it — God’s providence is evident in even the most mundane aspects of our lives.

So in honor of Thanksgiving, a holiday I all-too-often celebrate as a monument to gluttony and sloth, here are some of the reasons why I believe I may well be the luckiest man alive.

Foremost, I am supremely thankful that a being whose perfection is so complete that I cannot even begin to comprehend it, would look upon an abject sinner such as myself and provide a way to be reconciled to Him.

It is stupefying to think on just how unworthy I am of the gift of salvation. Everything else I have to be grateful for is secondary to this.

I am thankful for my wife. That the person who knows me best in the world could still be the person who loves me most, is another gift from God for which I am undeserving. There is no more sweet and caring person in the world. She is also entirely too cute for me.

I am thankful to be an American, with all the freedoms and privileges inherent in that. Say what you want about the changes wrought by the current administration, and I could certainly argue that the moral turpitude of the United States has been on a slow decline since the early 1960s thanks to the actions of an activist Supreme Court, but there is still no grander nation in the world. By a long shot. It isn’t even close. I am ethnocentric and proud.

I am thankful for my parents, who instilled upon me their values and provided so many of my needs in life.

They went to my basketball games even though I wasn’t very good, and other than giving me a girl’s name, were always very good to me.

I am thankful for a steady job in an unsteady economy. I am grateful that my well-being is no longer dependent on the ailing auspices of print journalism. As a new municipal employee, I am very, very appreciative of government benefit packages.

I am thankful for my two dogs, Chico and Grande, who ensure that every moment of my life is entertaining. Never underestimate how much a loving pet or two can enhance a person’s quality of life.

I am particularly grateful that my puppy has graduated from the stage in life where she bites me 100 percent of the time to the one where she bites me 25 percent of the time and just thinks about it the rest of the day.

As a fan of the San Antonio Spurs, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Pittsburgh Penguins — two of which are the reigning champions of their respective leagues and the other of which is the most successful NBA team of the last decade — I am quite possibly the most spoiled sports fan in the world.

Thank you Lord for the natural supremacy of the Steel City and for giving David Robinson four more NBA titles than Mark Cuban.

I am thankful for my new house, which makes me feel so much more grown up and more connected to the community than I did as an apartment-dweller.

I am thankful for my health. After the hectic lifestyle and odd hours of being a news reporter helped me balloon up to 180 pounds, I am now back down to my college weight — a fact that would unquestionably also appear on my wife’s list of things she is thankful for.

And last but not least, I am thankful to the Jacksonville Daily Progress for granting me space for this column each week in the Sunday paper. I have no shortage of opinion, and it has been surreally gratifying to learn that there are those in town and in other parts of the country who are eager each week to read it.

I have been asked by a few regular readers if having a conservative column in East Texas is akin to preaching to the choir, and the answer is a qualified yes. But it is a choir with a short attention span that is all-too-often sleeping in the pews.

If I can rouse and mobilize even a few to defend the conservative principles and Christian heritage that our nation was founded on, then it will be a worthwhile venture.

I leave you now with some parting words from our founding fathers, who made no secret that Thanksgiving was about giving thanks to God — not to Mother Earth or some impersonal spirit of thankfulness. Read these quotes from the crafters of our great land and then decide for yourselves who they recognized as the benefactor of our fledgling nation. Have a great and grateful Thanksgiving, Jacksonville.

“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor… Now, therefore, I do appoint Thursday, the 26th day of November 1789… that we may all unite to render unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for his kind care and protection.”

— George Washington

“I appoint… a day of public Thanksgiving to Almighty God…. to ask Him that He would... pour out His Holy Spirit on all ministers of the Gospel; that He would... spread the light of Christian knowledge through the remotest corners of the earth;… and that He would establish these United States upon the basis of religion and virtue.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Kelly Young is a former reporter for the Jacksonville Daily Progress.