Earlier this year I told you about my friend Joe who is 52 years old and was waiting for a heart transplant. The doctors had done all they could and his body was swelling so badly he couldn’t leave the house.

I want to tell you about Joe’s progress. Late spring he got the call from the hospital and was told to be there in two hours. He had heart and lung transplant. Two weeks ago I was thinking about him so I called him on his cell phone. When he answers, I hear road noise in the background and music playing. He and his wife were driving back from Vermont after spending time with their family. He was so happy on the phone.

I wanted to shed a tear for Joe because he was ok.

This Thanksgiving I would ask you to think about what are you thankful for and what is standing in your way of being thankful and full of joy. KT

I cannot tell you how thankful I am. Yesterday I was driving with the heated seat on, listening to Christmas music, looking at the remaining leaves and drinking Starbucks coffee. These things alone did not make me thankful but add in that my family is happy and healthy and yes, I had me a thankful, grateful, joyful and humbling moment.

Sunday at church the message was on the story of the prodigal son. At the end of the service the pastor ask anyone that is the prodigal or dealing with a prodigal, to come forward. Our church is large and the sanctuary sits a couple thousand people. When the pastor said this, it looked like half of the people in the sanctuary got up to come forward. I had another thankful moment right then because we were not standing up to walk down.

Our children are here and they are near. What an incredible blessing as a dad to know my baby girls are doing well and have married fine fine men and are handling life well.

So yes, I am a thankful man and a very blessed man. KT

I find that reading rags to riches stories really doesn’t motivate me. They are great stories and history lessons but reading about how someone who had a billion dollar idea doesn’t turn the crank in my engine. What motivates me is my family. Simple but true.

I have a vivid memory of being at the point of bankruptcy in 1990 and looking at my two little girls who were believing in me to make it ok. I remember being so debt burdened that I could hardly breathe and coming home and having my two daughters run up and get in my arms. They had no idea the pressure on me but they loved me in spite of bad financial decisions I had made. My goal was very simple. Get out of debt so that my family could breathe. That’s it. That was the goal.

Seeing social media guys, internet people, wall street investment folks making a lot of money is fine and good but I believe if you know the reason, you will by the grace of God, find the way. To me, it’s really about knowing why. For me the why was two sets of little eyes looking at me when I got home. It was the innocence of my two babies that made me want to be the best man and father I could be.

So as you hear about success stories and other people that made it big, just remember that what drives you is probably like what drives me and it is the simple things of the people you love and the type of family you want to have. KT

Parenting is very hard and heart wrenching at times. The following is a true story about an incredible mother to a little boy and how she handled a difficult situation. It really is a beautiful true story about a mother’s love.

One day, Thomas Edison came home from school and gave a paper to his mother. He told her, “My teacher gave this paper to me and told me to only give it to my mother.”

His mother’s eyes were tearful as she read the letter out loud to her child: “Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have enough good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself.”

After many, many years, Edison’s mother died, and he had become one of the greatest inventors of the century. One day he began looking through old family things and he saw a folded paper in the corner of a drawer in a desk. He took it and opened it up. On the paper was written: “Your son is mentally ill and cannot think clearly. We won’t let him come to school anymore.”

Edison cried for hours and then he wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was a mentally ill child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of the century.”

You remember when you were little you were taught, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Words are powerful, hurtful and can inflict a lifetime of pain but they can also lift up, build up and grow a child into a great adult. When dealing with our children, we as parents should be very careful with words. KT