Gilbert Thurston

For many years now I have posted my list of things I’m thankful for each Thanksgiving morning. As 2014 starts to come to a close, this year will be no different.

1 & 2. These two never change…Jesus and Lisa in that order. It’s not that I’m just thankful for them, they are also my top 2 in every decision in life and every priority that I have. By many standards I’ve had a pretty “successful” life. I give the credit not to just these two for their help but also that I never waver in keeping them the highest priority before anyone or anything else.

3. I’m alive: I guess in past years I’ve always taken life itself for granted. But after my incident back in February where I witnessed the shooting and then was chased myself, I have a new appreciation for each day that God gives me and I’m thankful I get to continue serving Him and His purposes.

4. My Family I’ve been fortunate through the years to have a large and close knit family (Parents, sibling grandparents, aunts uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, etc). Somehow, someway we still, although it’s not very frequent, stay connected together. Add into this mix my in-laws and I’m very blessed to have a family that I very much love and know is always there for me as I am for them.

5. My church Although we are about as small as we’ve ever been, we are also probably the healthiest we’ve ever been. I love each and every one of the people that God has given me to pastor and I’m so thankful that He’s opened up a door for us to purchase our own building.

6. Experiences Within the last few years I’ve made a more conscious decision to spend money not on stuff but experiences. Stuff will break, get stolen, wear out, be replaced by the next new thing, etc. But experiences are memories that can’t be taken from you. So I’m thankful that in the past year I’ve added many more great memories into the mind bank. Whether it be attending the Little League World Series, eating new foods, playing in the World Series of Poker, hanging out on a TV show set, traveling out west for 3 weeks, leading training events, etc., I’ve been so blessed this year to experience some really cool stuff.

7. Technology It’s amazing to think of how far we’ve come in the past 20 or so years. 20 years ago you still may have been using a rotary phone and your computer on your desk was big, slow and not that powerful. Today you carry your phone in your pocket and it’s hundreds of times more powerful than the old computer you first had. Anymore I hardly ever read an actual hard/soft cover book because now it’s all done electronically. Even more amazing is how all my devices sync up to allow me to do that. As an example, I may be listening to an audio book in the car on the way to an appointment. When I get out of the car and I’m sitting in a waiting area I can pull out my phone and continue reading the book at the same place I just left off in the car…but not because I turned to the right place…No it knows where I left off. Later I can do the same thing at my computer or on my tablet…each time it saying, “here is where you last left off on your other device, would you like to continue from there”. I mean how amazing is that? And if that’s how far we’ve come in the last 20 years, imagine what the next 20 will bring.

8. You If you’ve made it this far then you are probably someone that is close to me and I just want to thank you for who you are and your love and friendship. Looking forward to many more years with you where we can make new memories to be thankful for!

On Friday morning I woke up to an interesting email that read, “Please call me ASAP about appearing on the Poker Night in America TV show”. It was signed and had all the contact information for Nolan Dalla who is the Media Director for the World Series of Poker. I was already familiar with him and the concept for this new TV show so I called him for more info.

Basically the show which premieres in April will be a bit different than poker shows in the past have been. Yes, it will still show the action from a game but it’s also part reality show in that they want to focus on the people who play the game and the interesting backgrounds and stories that they have. Thus the call for me to appear on the show.

After talking about it and thinking/praying about it over the weekend I decided for a couple of reasons not to appear. When I let Nolan know my decision he was very gracious and still invited me to come to the taping to see what it was like and to meet and mingle with some of the players. That I decided to do so I took a couple of hours yesterday to drive down to Baltimore to check it out. To follow are some of the pictures I took along with some comments.

I was just as fascinated by the production side of things as anything else. Learned a couple of ideas to make my videos even better. This particular shoot was going on for 12 hours. Players were rotating in and out but some of the names included Greg Merson, Jason Summerville, Danielle Andersen, David Baker, Gavin Smith, Matt Glantz and apparently Olympic Swimming champ Michael Phelps showed up shortly after I left.

Nolan is the guy standing in the middle of the 3 guys in picture 3. The female I’m pictured with is Danielle Andersen. She was one of the stars of the movie, “Bet, Raise, Fold“. Lisa and I watched it a few months back and it’s sort of like what this TV show is about…ordinary people, in this case a woman who’s husband taught her the game and she excelled while raising a family in Minnesota. She seemed so nice in the movie and she was no different in person.

As for the guy I’m pictured with, that is 2012 Main Event Champion of the World Series of Poker, Greg Merson. Greg is from the Baltimore area and 2 years ago he outlasted 6598 players to take home over 8.5 million for his WSOP win. He was very gracious with his time with me and had some kind words.

I had a great time and was grateful for the opportunity to see the behind the scenes of something I’ve only ever seen on TV. I was able to share my story with a few people and hopefully I was able to burst some of their preconceived notions of what followers of Jesus are like. In fact one person commented, “You’re really funny, I didn’t expect that from a pastor”. I think it’s pretty cool that my hobby is more and more becoming a platform to share my faith. Who knows, maybe soon I’ll be able to do that on TV. They will more than likely be shooting again this summer in Baltimore and Nolan has already invited me to come back to again observe or if I want play… we’ll see.