Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD. Psalm 116:17

I suppose I've never seen thanksgiving as a sacrifice because sacrifice, by its denotation, entails that something valuable is willingly given at a cost to its owner, and thanksgiving, by its connotation, is what you find in the fridge on Friday morning -- the leftovers.

But thankfulness is more than the memorized words we utter under our breath after Aunt Thelma's stomach-moving potato paste passes us by; it is an act of understanding that we have been given something that we don't deserve. When we look at our gratitude in the truest glass, we see what we are without the gift we've been given. This glance can be rather scary, which is why, when we take the time to look, when we sacrifice our pride and self-deceit, we recognize that we must decide whether or not we will call on His name for grace.