This morning I attended a Gratitude in the Great Outdoors event at Erie MetroParks. It was a short talk on gratitude followed by time to decorate our own gratitude journal and a mile walk. Melissa Price, the ED of Erie MetroParks (and one of my closest friends) led the morning. She talked about the science of gratitude. Studies show we have 70,000 thoughts a day and that 80% of those thoughts are negative and of those thoughts, 95% are repetitive. She talked about why that is the case but that’s for another day.

I am a practitioner of gratitude. I have kept gratitude journals in the past. I make it a central part of my prayer life and my journaling practice even today. She gave us an exercise to help us be more specific with our gratitude. I found it very helpful.

I am grateful for ___________________________because_________________________________________

• A person – name the specific gesture that stayed with you.

• A moment – describe where you were and how you felt

• A lesson – Say how it changed your way forward.

Being specific with gratitude makes it more effective in your life.

As I was thinking about the first person I was going to write about (I have a list about 35 people in my journal), I was having a hard time focusing in on specifics. The class this morning and this exercise helped immensely.

So I am using this to start every day of my “Grateful for the people I have met along the way” blog project for November.

I am grateful for my sister Nancy “aka Pudge” because of who she is.

I am the youngest of six kids (4 girls, 2 boys). We all share the same dad, but the three oldest have a different mom. This makes explaining our family complicated; a diagram would help sort out who is related to whom. We were a modern family before it became a TV show, and the three oldest are much older than the three younger ones. Nancy and I are the babies of our respective sets. She was about 17 or 18 when I was born.

I have so many memories of Nancy growing up. As a kid, I would go spend weeks with her during the summer. I remember one summer (I think I was 9), we went and saw 3 movies in one week. One of them was Amityville Horror and to this day, I DESPISE horror movies. It’s what I loved about my older siblings, they always treated me as equals. We also saw Main Event that week with Barbara Streisand and Ryan O’Neil. I still love the song the Main Event (I may or may not be listening to it as I type).

She also took me to see my first concert, Bruce Springsteen. This alone deserves its own paragraph.

When I was in college, she called me up and said she had an extra ticket to game 3 of the World Series (it was 1995 and the Cleveland Indians were playing the Atlanta Braves). Of course I said yes. I drove 7 hours on a Tuesday from Virginia in time to go to the game that night. We watched the pennant raised. It was emotional for me. My mom was a huge baseball fan and she would always say “this is the year they are going to win the pennant”. She died when I was 17 and never got to see it. The game went 11 innings and we won 7-6. Jacobs field was electric. One of my top 5 core memories. I still have a picture of us in a shady stairwell buying a sweatshirt. I got up the next morning and drove 7 hours back to school. It. Was. Worth. It.

Nancy and Scott (her husband,aka RenMan, who deserves his own blog) took me to spring training one year.

Some of my most fun memories with her was a road trip we took to Florida with our sister Karen and nieces Kennedy and McKinley to see our brother, Bill. The stories, the laughter, the fun, the Dr. Phil moments, the playlists, the tears, and the dreaded complaint/cuss jar. And the road trip we took with our sister Penny to Florida for our brother Bill’s funeral. Big Chill vibes with crying and laughing.

But the memory that makes me most thankful for Nancy is one she would be uncomfortable with me sharing but I am going to share it anyway because it changed my life. When I was in 7th grade the house I was living in with my mom, dad, brother and sister was being sold. We were renting at the time. My dad was an alcoholic and life could be tumultuous. My parents could not afford to buy the house. I vividly remember Nancy coming over and talking it over with my mom and dad. She offered to buy the house. She did not want us 3 younger ones having to move and switch schools. She was working a full-time job and took a part-time job at Gold Circle to afford it. So we wouldn’t have to move. She didn’t have to do that. She didn’t have to sacrifice the way she did. But she did. And I am forever grateful. And she has done many selfless things like that throughout the years.

A couple of years ago, I went and stayed with her for a few days. There was a violent storm that rolled through and we lost power for over 24 hours I believe. In true Strickler fashion, we decided we were hungry and we wanted to drive around looking at the storm damage. The only place with power was a mom and pop pizza place. As we were riding around, I was able to finally thank her for what she did.

I think of the butterfly effect which is the idea that small things effect big things in ways we do not see. If we would have moved when I was 13 there were some major events in my life that probably would not have happened. I ended up becoming a follower of Jesus in 10th grade and attending the church I now pastor. That single event changed everything. When I moved home to take care of my dad at the end 0f 2001, he was still here on Exchange Street. And I ended up becoming a City Council member which led to some deep friendships and some coming to Christ.

I am grateful in our later years, Nancy and I have become more than sisters, but close friends. I have the best people in my life. And on this 2nd day of November, I give thanks for my sister Nancy.