Happy Thanksgiving

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

While we did not meet today – I thought I would still jot down a few thoughts. 

The first is that I am very thankful for each of the women that comes to our study each week.  Every one brings the special gifts that God has given her, the uniqueness that makes her who she is, and shares some of herself with us.   Thank you!  I draw from your strength and insights, your faith and your experience – Thank you for being a part of our group.

Secondly I thought I would take a detour from the book we are studying now to touch on the book I read shortly before we began our study.  The book is called One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Anne Voskamp. (I don’t have the publisher’s information handy right now).  It is a book I would recommend for it reminds us to be thankful always – for the big things like the peaceful country we live in and the health of our families – but also for the small things – like the rainbows in the soap bubbles when we wash dishes, or the perfection of a flower growing voluntarily where one would least expect it.  In the first chapter she talks about the initial sin being the sin of ingratitude.   While God had given Adam and Eve everything they needed and so much more, the serpent helped them focus on the one thing they didn’t have – the right to eat from two trees whose fruit was forbidden.  So instead of continuing to rejoice in the abundant goodness of all God had supplied, Adam and Eve chose to eat from the tree the serpent advocated.   Voskamp says: “Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren’t satisfied in God and what He gives.  We hunger for something more, something other.” God plans for us to be whole, to be brought “to our full glory” (I Corinthians 2:7 NEB) but we are so busy looking at what we don’t have we don’t see all that we do and therefore find it impossible to be content and grow to our full potential.

So I challenge us this Thanksgiving: Let us look at the wonderful blessings we have so undeservedly received and be thankful for them. Let us shift our focus from the things we think we want but do not have to the marvelous abundance of what we do have. Let’s not try to think how we would change the ending of sad or difficult stories if we had a chance, but trust God, the author of our story, that things will all work out for the good somehow.  And Let us be thankful for all we have.

In our Church’s Thanksgiving service yesterday, the worship leader shared something her mother used to say – I don’t have it word for word but it was something like: “Seeds of discontent cannot grow in a thankful heart”. Let us fill our hearts with gratitude and thanksgiving. Let us look for things to be thankful for instead of for things to wish for.  Let us be thankful most of all that we don’t have to write our stories or those of the people we love, but that we get to live our stories, our lives knowing that, however things feel at the moment, God, who knows all and sees all will bring some good out of even the worst tragedies, will help us through day to day life and, often, will surprise us with goodness we didn’t even know to expect. 

God is Good! Let us give thanks!