I would like to let all who read and enjoy my weekly column know how thankful I am for you.

It gives me great joy when I am stopped in local stores and asked if I am the lady who writes that column in the paper. Often, they mention my name or a particular column I have written. Then, they mention to me that they read my columns regularly.

Some of them tell me they send my articles out of state. Thank you, you guys have made my day on those days.

As the people who know me are aware, I write from my heart. It is often a memory from my childhood or something I hold deep and that is my faith.

So, today I want to write about my gratefulness this Thanksgiving.

First, for the freedom I am most thankful for and that is being a Christian and all my blessings I take for granted every day.

As I listen to the nightly news, I am saddened by the world that is so full of hatred and hurting people. Some are abusing drugs and have no regard for their precious children. They often choose drugs over their kids and all I can think is, “Why?”

God gave them the precious gift of a child and they disregard that for a drug?

Our world has become so immoral with people just allowing so much to be acceptable, too afraid to speak out even though the Bible says it is wrong. The reasoning that “some people are made different than others” is silly. That is no excuse. We are all made different from each other, but we all have guidelines to go by in the Bible.

We all need God to get through the difficult times in life. Life is hard. If I have learned anything in my 69 years of life this holds true.

However, in my opinion, the the good in life will always outweigh the bad.

This year has been an exceptionally hard one for my family. Out of my mother’s five children, four have been hit hard by cancer. Three of us currently have cancer.

Without Christ to take my problems to on sleepless nights, life would have been much harder this year. There are times I just have to hand it all to God and quit worrying.

However, this Thanksgiving my husband is doing much better after his two major surgeries.

Our son just had a surgery on his back, a cervical disectomy at two levels on his back this week. Hopefully, his back pain is gone.

My sister is currently out of the hospital where she has spent much time off and on this year for heart afibrillation and surgery.

Thank God I still have all my siblings even though three of us are battling cancer — one of my brothers has lung cancer, one has leukemia and I have non-Hodgkin lymphoma. My sister also has had non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Even my younger brother is not in good health, but we all will be here for Thanksgiving.

My cancer is slow growing at the present time and I am being closely watched.

Our children and grandchildren are all alive and doing good right now — so much to be thankful for.

I am blessed with many friends in my life. I know I can go to them and ask for prayer at any time and feel secure knowing I will have their prayer. For that, I am thankful.

I still believe the greatest gift you can ever receive is prayer. Do not forget to pray for others in your life. For example, a lady who stopped to ask about me the other day told me she lost her husband the day before but only after she told me how much she cared. I was shocked to think she cared enough to ask about me when her own heart had to be breaking.

This town has a lot of caring people in it who pray for others. Continue to pray for our little town for the morals of our town to grow and not disintegrate.

I count my blessings this Thanksgiving, and I pray all of you will have a wonderful Thanksgiving day. 

Sue Staton is a Clark County native who grew up in the Kiddville area. She is a wife, mother and grandmother who is active in her church, First United Methodist Church, and her homemakers group, Towne and Country Homemakers.