Today I will greet with a spirit of gratitude.  It is so easy to be ungrateful.  To look at your life and see many things that are lacking.  I will change the focus of it and thank the Almighty for all his gifts.  He has given me so much.  And I have to thank Him for so much:  Every breath I possess is His.  All the material wealth I possess is, also, His.  It is only mine temporarily.  It is only on loan.  As well as the people He puts in my life.  All on loan.  As well as my wife and direct relatives–my two sisters and cousins.  All on loan.  I have to thank God for all of it.  As well as my friends.  I will thank God for all of it and continue to greet this day with a spirit of gratitude.  It is all His.

Does the whole world consist of just skinny somewhat busty twenty year old women.  If you view a lot of the covers of magazines in supermarkets it would appear that way.  Is that the only standard for beauty?  Most women never match up and some woman are only there temporarily.

I do not know how many times I talked to a woman who told me she was on a diet.  The perennial diet.  Many times a person gets heavier as she/he ages.

My favorite cousin who I had not seen in a while had to apologize to me right off and tell me she gained weight.  I had not seen her in a number of years.  She really is quite lovely.  My two kids warmed up to her instantly.

Beauty is so many things.  I don’t care if you have everything in the right place but if your smile is not there I lose interest quickly.  If you are not genuinely caring and loving I dismiss you quickly.  It is what is in the inside that makes you beautiful.

Who you genuinely are is what transforms you.  Not your weight or having the right parts in the right proportions.  Your sense of humor is important.  Can you make me laugh.  Or think.  Your intellect.  Your charm.  All those things.

Fortunately my wife has most of these attributes.  And I consider myself a lucky man.  She is self conscious about her weight but I keep reassuring her that is not the most important thing although she has been losing weight steadily.

And I keep calling her “skinny”.  And telling her she has a beautiful smile for I know it comes from deep inside her.  She also makes me laugh and challenges me.

I was attracted to her by who she was deep inside.  That is really the only thing that truly matters to me.  She is beautiful to me.  Looks can get you only so far.