The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Marksissons and is narrated by Brock Armstrong.

What it means to be thankful for your health.

Think back to the last time you had a major cold or flu. The last time you had a

fever and body aches so bad your hair hurt. The thousand daggers in your throat, the puffy,

burning eyes, the roaring headache, the plugged sinuses and clogged lungs, the crippling fatigue. In the throes, you likely

couldn't imagine, as most of us do, what it was ever like to be healthy. You could scarcely

remember what life had been like three days ago when you were lifting weights, lifting your

kids, laughing at work, entertaining at home, sleeping soundly.

Fast forward, and it's a Bermuda triangle of mental discouragement and physical misery.

And this is just a cold or flu. Many people deal with so much worse. Still, it's a relatable illustration of an all-too-common truth.

We tend to take our health for granted until it's suddenly gone.

Three days prior, we may have felt good about our workout performance or finished it off grudgingly,

or opted to skip it entirely.

We may have gotten out of bed noticing that we had a pretty good night's sleep or already been too lost in negative anticipation of the workday ahead to let ourselves feel good.

We might have appreciated having the energy to keep up with the kids during some sledding or tag at the park,

or felt distracted by stress and spent much of the time managing the world on our phones or running through imagined conversations in our heads.

Is anything sounding familiar?

In a regular day, we barely, if at all, notice our health until or unless its limitations, disrupt our routine or intentions.

What does it mean to be thankful for your health? A lot, I think.

At its most basic level, it can be a there but the grace of God go I feeling we get when

someone we know dies of a heart attack or gets cancer.

The news jolts us into awareness of our mortality, health being what keeps us on the other side.

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