Take Out Time -- To Just Be Thankful

While sitting here tonight, watching the conclusion of "There Are No Children Here," my heart pulsated as I heard a little innocent boy say, "When I wake up in the morning, I feel good that God gave me another chance to stay alive." This statement as innocent as it was, was true to him because of where he lived, and the lethal possibilities that he faced daily of being killed by someone's bullet.

Oh -- I thought, just how much do I really mean those words when I wake up in the morning? Are those words as true to me as they are to this little boy, or have they become a ritual -- empty words with no meaning?

In our often-stressful lives, we are constantly absorbed by negativisms, feeling that our troubles are insurmountable and that no one else in this world is troubled by such circumstances.

We are often absorbed by meaningless thanksgivings -- being thankful only in empty words for the things that we have. We are so absorbed with the things that we do not have, that we effortlessly forget about the things that we do have. Things such as loved ones, a place to lay our heads, food on our tables and clothes on our backs. Things such as -- LIFE.

Things that we often complain about -- that we often yearn -- overpoweringly forces us to forget to be thankful for what we have. While we are often concerned with the things in life that we feel like we cannot live without, there are millions of others, of young girls and boys, men and women, who are genuinely thankful to just be alive.

Just to be alive -- is enough alone to be thankful. Take out time -- this day -- to just be thankful.

Copyright © 2002 by Audrina Jones Bunton. REPRINTING THIS ARTICLE: Permission is granted to reproduce or distribute this article only in its entirety and provided copyright is acknowledged. You can find other articles to choose from at http://www.purposefully-living.com/mailing%20list.htm

Motivational Speaker, Audrina Jones Bunton was born the seventh of eight children in her household in Pinehurst, North Carolina into a loving and committed Christian home. As she has 2 children, over 40 nieces and nephews and great- nieces and nephews, it is not unusual to find her under the same roof with many of her maternal five-generation family on weekends and on holidays. In her youth, she fondly recalls traveling throughout the U.S. with her family, as her parents ministered from state to state year after year-helping people as they traveled.

A graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a Bachelor's degree in Sociology, Audrina is a Competent Toastmaster of Toastmasters International and serves as the North Carolina District Sergeant At Arms. She is a former counselor of the Durham Pregnancy Support Services, a Christian-oriented crisis pregnancy center in Durham, North Carolina and is currently a Social Research Assistant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Audrina is currently studying at the Master's Divinity School in Evansville, Indiana with a combined concentration in Biblical Counseling and IABC certification.

She also serves as the Youth Director at the Come As You Are Evangelistic Center in Aberdeen, North Carolina where her mother, Lydia Jones is the pastor.

Modeling after a song that her mother so often sings, and one that Martin Luther King, Jr. often quoted, her life and speeches are based on the following lyrics, "If I can help somebody as I pass along, If I can cheer somebody with a word or song, If I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, Then my living will not be in vain."

Audrina resides with her husband William, and 2 children, Audrina Lorraine and William Woodrow.