Tag: gratitude

THANKFUL

I awoke this morning to a chilly reading on the thermometer and a light dusting of snow on the ground and housetops.  With Thanksgiving less than a week away, I decided today would be a perfect day to make my dressing.  The house is redolent with the aromas of freshly baked cornbread, along with celery and onions sautéing in a bath of melted butter.  Short of a turkey roasting in the oven, I can’t think any smell more evocative of Thanksgiving.  Even though it is a gray day outside, the lights from the Christmas tree create a festive atmosphere indoors.  The sounds of glorious Christmas music fill the air while the dishwasher is hums along as it gives my holiday glassware a good cleansing, necessary after a year in my Great Aunt Fannie Belle’s china cabinet.  This is my happy place and my heart is overflowing with gratitude.

We will have 18-ish at our table this year.  It’s a moving target, but there will be plenty of food for anyone who shows up at the last minute.  We are grateful for everyone who can make it, and will miss those who cannot.  With grown children and mostly-grown grands, we have a lot of moving parts now.  I try to stay flexible, thankful that I can host this holiday and mindful of my days getting shorter.  Next year is not guaranteed.  I can remember my grandmother saying the same thing at holidays in the passed.  I dismissed it as something an old woman says, but mostly because I just could not fathom a holiday without her.  Oh how I wish she could be with us this year.  

As I think back over the year, we have many reasons to be thankful on this day of thanks.  Has it been all lollipops and roses?  Absolutely not!  But Jesus has walked with us every day.  There have been days of laughter and fun, but also days of tears and grief.  We have had days that surprised us with joy and days that kicked us in the gut.  Days of celebrations and days of terrifying uncertainty.  There were nights that robbed us of sleep as we gave way to fear. And there were days that left us scratching our heads in dismay.  Although we don’t enjoy the bad days, they make the good days all the more sweet.  And there were more good days than bad! 

If I try to list all my blessings I will certainly miss some, but here is a start.  I am grateful for an enduring marriage and my husband Jerry who survived a near-fatal illness a few years ago.  Every day one of us says, “We got another day.”  We know these are bonus days and we don’t take them for granted.  I am so thankful for my growing family, and grateful for extended family scattered across America.  To those who can’t be with us, I wish you a very happy thanksgiving.  We have an empty chair at our table this year as our Mimi left us to join her beloved husband in Heaven.  Mindful of others who have left us, I can still say God has blessed us.  

When I think of all our friends, my heart could almost burst.  We have precious life-long friends, and those who have come along more recently.  I am grateful for a Bible-teaching church and a fellowship of Believers who hold the ropes for each other.  I am thankful for 48 years of affiliation with Stonecroft Ministries and the opportunities to share the Gospel.  I love my Tulsa Woven girls!  I am blessed to attend Community Bible Study, where I have deepened my relationship with the Lord and made deep friendships.  Bible Quilt Journaling and the ladies who are a part of it bless me with a different method of meditating on Scripture.

It is noon and the alarm on my watch has just alerted me to pray for America.  I have thought many times how grateful I am that I was born in the USA.  Oh how I love this beautiful land of ours, and how I long to see another Great Awakening.  Jerry and I have been blessed to see a good deal of America, but there are still National Parks we hope to explore.  I am grateful for the freedoms we have, and for those who died to protect those freedoms.

Most of all, I am thankful for the privilege of knowing God and His Son, Jesus Christ.  He has provided me with everything I need, and kept every promise He has made to me.  I don’t know what the future holds, but I know the One who holds the future.  And for that I am indescribably thankful.

I will be your God throughout your lifetime— until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.  Is. 46:4 NLT

GIVE THANKS

I have been doing a little reading about the first Thanksgiving, and I am once again in awe of the Pilgrims.  They endured a harrowing crossing of the Atlantic and after 65 miserable days, two deaths, and being blown about 250 miles off course, they landed in Massachusetts.  The first thing they did was to read Psalm 100 and give thanks to God.  It quickly became clear to them that they needed to establish some type of law in this wild new land.  The Mayflower Compact was written and signed by 41 men (women were not allowed to sign).  There were nine who did not sign and their number included hired sailors and those too sick to sign.  

I encourage every American to read the brief text of the document.  There are two points that stand out to me.  First is the affirmation that the venture was undertaken to advance the kingdom of God and to bring Him glory.  The second was the idea that law is made by the people, not by a king.  

I can’t even imagine the sacrifices the Pilgrims made.  Arriving in a wild and untamed land, they were led by divine providence to a village that had been deserted by a tribe of Native Americans who had been wiped out by a plague.  Here the Pilgrims found buried corn that sustained them during that first winter.  I may be getting lost in the weeds of history, but I am trying to make a point.  Life that first year was incredibly hard.  But still they set aside a day to give thanks.  

This has been a hard year for us, this 2020.  For some of us heartbreakingly hard.  But today we give thanks.  We look for the good in the midst of the bad, and we give thanks to the God who sustains us. We have hope for the future because we know God to be a good God, all the time.  He is good even when we don’t understand, even when our tears temporarily blind us to His great love for us.  We will give thanks today because He is worthy of our praise.  But we give thanks for another reason…because it is good for us.  It is good for us to be mindful of our blessings and to express gratitude to the Source of those blessings.  Psalm 92 tells us that it is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to His name. 

Give thanks even though there is an empty chair at your table.  Give thanks if you are out of a job, even if the bills are piling up.  Give thanks if you can’t be with those you love this year.  Even if you don’t know what tomorrow will bring, give thanks today.  When you have no words, pray His word back to him with all the gratitude you can muster.  Today is a day for giving thanks.

1Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
2     Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
    It is he who made us, and we are his[a];
    we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
    and his courts with praise;
    give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
    his faithfulness continues through all generations.  Psalm 100

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