and along the beach. The ability to walk gives us freedom to enjoy life! Say thank you for my legs and feet, and really mean it.
Think about your arms and hands and how many things you pick up and hold in one day. Your hands are the major tools of your life, and they are in nonstop use all day long, every day. Your hands allow you to write, eat a meal, use a phone or computer, shower, get dressed, use the bathroom, pick up things and hold them, and do everything for yourself. Without the use of your hands you would be dependent on other people to do things for you. Say thank you for my arms, hands, and fingers!
Think about your amazing senses. Your sense of taste gives you so much pleasure multiple times throughout the day as you eat and drink. You know from losing your sense of taste through a cold that the joy of eating and drinking disappears without being able to taste food or drinks. Say thank you for my amazing sense of taste!
Your sense of smell enables you to experience the beautiful fragrances of life: flowers, perfumes, clean sheets, dinner as it’s cooking, a fire burning on a winter’s night, the air on a summer’s day, freshly cut grass, the smell of the earth after rain. Say thank you for my wonderful sense of smell!
If you didn’t have a sense of touch, you would never know hot from cold, soft from sharp, or smooth from rough. You would never be able to feel objects, or physically express love or receive it. Your sense of touch allows you to touch your loved ones with a reassuring hug, and to feel the touch of a hand from one human being to another is one of the most precious things in life. Say thank you for my precious sense of touch!
Think about the miracle of your eyes, which enable you to see the faces of your loved ones and friends, read printed books, newspapers, and emails, watch television, see the beauty of nature, and, most importantly, see your way through life. Just put a blindfold on for an hour and try to do what you normally do, and you will appreciate your eyes. Say thank you for my eyes that enable me to see everything!
Think about your ears, which enable you to hear your own voice and other people’s voices so you can talk to people. Without ears and your sense of hearing you could not use a phone, hear music, listen to the radio, hear your loved ones talk, or hear any of the sounds of the world around you. Say thank you for my hearing!
And to use any of your senses would be impossible without your brain, which processes over a million messages a second through all of your senses! It is actually your brain that enables you to sense and experience life, and there is no computer technology in the world that can duplicate it. Say thank you for my brain and my beautiful mind!
Think about the trillions of cells working unceasingly, 24/7, for your health, body, and life. Say thank you cells! Think about your life-sustaining organs, which are continuously filtering, cleaning, and renewing everything in your body, and think about the fact that they do all their work automatically without you even having to think about it. Say thank you, organs, for working perfectly!
But more miraculous than any sense, system, function, or other organ in our body, is the organ of your heart. Your heart governs the life of every other organ, because it is your heart that keeps the life flowing to every system in your body. Say thank you for my strong and healthy heart!
Next, take a piece of paper or a card, and write on it in big bold letters:
THE GIFT OF HEALTH IS KEEPING ME ALIVE.
Take the card with you today, and put it in a place where you know you will see it often. If you work at a desk, you can put it right in front of you. If you’re a driver, put it in a place in your car or truck where you will see it often. If you’re at home most of the time, you can put it where you wash your hands, or near your phone. Choose a place where you know you will see the words you’ve written often.
Today,