In this post-election season, I feel we have forgotten something very important.

We have forgotten Thanksgiving; we have forgotten to be thankful. I remember growing up, my mother had my siblings and I recite in sing-song voices “a thankful heart is good medicine.”

Good medicine.

Medicine for a deeply sick world, perhaps? What a timely coincidence.

I remember the day after the election, regardless of who you voted for, there was an impenetrable silence hanging like a curtain over campus.

I walked into my 10 a.m. class the morning after the president-elect results were final, and I still remember the faces of my classmates.

I think this election divided people more so than in past elections.

This election drove a deeper wedge between family, friends and community members.

I remember the feeling in my heart when I heard a classmate announce he didn’t think he could look someone who voted for Trump in the eyes.

This is a nation deeply divided.

A nation with an infected wound, bleeding between the severed sides; one labeled Clinton and the other labeled Trump.

And we trek on to Thanksgiving with this sickness with half grimaces, pretending to look earnest as we mumble our gratitudes.

Dear friends, this is the time when we need to focus on our blessings the most. I am not trying to invalidate your feelings or fears about the election, but what is done is done and little good it will do to carry the storm cloud of sadness over your head, except make you miserable.

I have heard it said that when you cannot change your circumstances, it is your attitude you must change.

Besides being the death of your diet, Thanksgiving is a time when differences are put aside as we join hands and remember all the blessings we have received. For Cubs fans, you can finally stop being the butt end of all jokes pertaining to losers. That is something to be thankful for.

If you are healthy and well, realize there are many who cannot boast of the same. If you have family and friends who love and support you unconditionally, realize not everyone is so lucky.

If you are on this campus right now, understand there are many places where young adults do not have the means to receive higher education. You have much to be thankful for.

And if a thankful heart is good medicine, just think about how much medicine we could bring to our hurting world if every person on campus was thankful for just one thing.

Just one.

Now think about if every person was thankful for two, or three, or even ten things.

Think about how much medicine we could make.