A Different Kind of Thanksgiving
 

 

A week before Thanksgiving I found myself as usual, at the grocery store stocking up. Only this year I wasn’t stocking up on turkey and dinner rolls, I was stocking up on soup and crackers. Tis the season for the virus and flu and it hit our house early this year. It’s no fun being sick, even when you know it’s only temporary. It’s even less fun when you are sick, or sick about a situation, and you are wishing it was temporary but you know it’s not. Thinking about that in the middle of the grocery store made my first world problem (that the store happened to be out of the chicken broth I’d come for) seem small.

 

The pilgrims were no strangers to illness; over half of them died during the winter of 1620-1621. And the earliest citizens of America were no strangers to the difficulties of life; they weren’t handed freedom, they fought for it.In 1979, George Washington set aside Thursday November 26 as “A Day of Publick Thanksgiving and Prayer”. The first Thanksgiving decree states the day was “to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God.” And I imagine that’s how George Washington and much of the nation observed that first Thanksgiving, despite the minor inconveniences of life, despite the hardships and heartaches they and their ancestors experienced.

 

Honestly chicken soup is the least of the troubles weighing on my heart this Thanksgiving. My heart goes out to the lady I talked to yesterday who lived with years of abuse; it’s been thirty years since she spent Thanksgiving with her family. Then there’s the guy she helped last week, the one who was about to jump off a bridge; who knows if he even has a family. My heart goes out to those who live in this “land of freedom”, but aren’t really free, to those who are sick (and I’m talking bigger issues than the flu), and those who will spend this as the first Thanksgiving without someone they lost this year. And then there are those who are not even blessed to live in this land of freedom, those who are oppressed, those who wonder where the next bite to eat will come from (I bet they’d have found something besides the chicken soup in that store to be happy about). But despite all of the hardships and heartaches there are, there is so much to be grateful for, for me to be grateful for, for all people to be grateful for. Perhaps a touch of flu will keep you from enjoying a slice of pecan pie this year; there’s always next year, and even if next year doesn’t come, Jesus has come. He came from the glories of Heaven and stepped into our broken world to make a way for us to be right with the Almighty God (indeed the One our country’s founders set today aside to thank).

 

Today we can count our blessings here (and they are many if you live in America); we can also count our blessings in Eternity (and that you can do no matter where you live if you know or will come to know Jesus). In some ways Thanksgiving has become about the turkey, the shopping, the football game, and the family reunion, good things we can be thankful for. But as you enjoy your turkey, your Black Friday deals, or a comfortable spot on the couch; don’t forget to give thanks, both for the things you can touch and taste and see and feel and experience today and for the things we have hope (through Christ) of experiencing in Eternity. Whatever you do this year, be it deep fry a turkey or make a pot of chicken noodle soup for an ailing stomach, do it with thanks, and keep the thanks...in Thanksgiving!

 

"“give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

                                                                               I Thessalonians 5:18 (ESV)