We would like to thank you for all of the support and look forward to sharing USANA products and the latest health information as we learn of it. Our current schedule is allowing us to pursue additional interests that will take us away from the monthly format. Our update Blog at stevensfamilyhealthupdates.blogspot.com is the best we to keep up with everything we post. You can follow it or bookmark it for your convenience.
This edition of our USANA Newsletter will have a different format as it is mainly a holiday message for Thanksgiving and beyond to Christmas.
Thanks & Giving
If you are someone that gives thanks daily or perhaps your thankful awareness only pops up on the radar during this time of year, it is important to remember the importance of Thanksgiving beyond the food, family, friends, and football. Being thankful is not only recognition of others; it is healthy for you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
It’s no secret that many people have less now than a few years ago. This long downturn in the economy has created the situation for many of us to tighten our belts. Be thankful for what you have today. You might not have a new car, an I-Pad or perhaps you might even lose your home. Look around you and take an inventory of your life. If you still have food, family, faith, shelter, clothing, your health and even the opportunity to be able to read this newsletter than you still have more than billions of people in the world.
The second part of Thanksgiving is the opportunity to give. Service to others is one of the finest ways to give thanks as it strengthens both the giver and receiver.
There is a story of a man traveling and experienced a breakdown with his car. Being stranded in the middle of an open road without any way to get a car started can be very stressful to say the least if you have a cell phone or not. After a short time a car was passing by and the driver stopped to offer help. The second man quickly found the problem and was able to get the first man back on the road and on to his destination. The first man was grateful and offered to pay for the assistance he received. The second man said that the best way to thank him was to pay it forward and help someone else that is facing a challenge in life. You increase the thanks by giving.
Looking ahead
Thanksgiving is just the beginning of the “Holiday Season”. There are two sides to the season. The commercial side where deals are stacked deep and sold cheep in every aisle and online where you can e-shop and click, and click from the comfort of your home. The Spiritual side is observed by many with Christmas, others with Chanukkah, and some observe modern holidays that have no religious or spiritual connection. Either way there is if for a few weeks, the feeling of Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward men.
In our house we celebrate Christmas. It is only in the last few years have we really understood the importance of the birth of a baby in a manger over 2000 years ago and how that birth affects our lives today. There would not be any Christmas, commercial or spiritual without that event.
A few years ago someone shared the story of Keeping Christmas by Henry Van Dyke. This was written in the late 19th century but the words still have value and meaning today.
It is a good thing to observe Christmas day. The mere marking of times and seasons, when men agree to stop work and make merry together, is a wise and wholesome custom. It helps one to feel the supremacy of the common life over the individual life. It reminds a man to set his own little watch, now and then, by the great clock of humanity which runs on sun time. But there is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.
Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you; to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world; to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground; to see that your fellow-men are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy; to own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life; to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness--are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.
Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and the desires of little children; to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts; to try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open--are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.
Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world--stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death--and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas.
And if you keep it for a day, why not always?
But you can never keep it alone.
