The Day to Celebrate Thankfulness fast approaches! It has become one of my favorite days of the year. It's such a simple holiday and therein lies it's appeal. A day set aside to revel in the positve side of life and to blow the whistle on the insistent and nearly nerver ending list of gripes, shortcomings, woes and worries we spend so much time reciting to each other!!
I tend to be a nervous, frightened, person if I follow my natural tendencies.
So I try very hard not to follow my natural tendencies. It's not worth it.
Instead I try to limit the bummer stuff that enters my head and my world. I try to stand tall and think positive. One of my favorite refrains is "There is nothing wrong with God. He's still very much alive and He sees the whole thing like a painting not like a play so nothing is a suprise to Him because He's already there"
I like to end each day by giving my concerns to God. I try to mentally put them in a little box and close the lid and tie a ribbon around it and then hand it to God. Each morning I take the things that concern me out of the box and look them over and talk to God about them and ask Him what I can and should do about each one. Then I get out of bed.
So what does this have to do with Thanksgiving Day?
Well it has this to do with it. I try to be thankfilled everyday but I don't manage to be. There is so much that must be done and should be done and should have been done and might have been done and then some things I wish I could have gotten done. And then the day is done again.
But on Thanksgiving Day. All six of my offspring, my hubby and my three sons in law and my six grandchildren and one more God is still working on inside of his or her mommy and I will all be together in one place for one meal and one prayer. I'm looking forward to it. I'm planning that it'll be a fun day of lots of chatter, smiles, laughter, and all the ordinary have tos and got tos that fill my day will stop for a day.
We will have a good pile of food to eat. Many of us like to cook and all of us like to eat. And there will be a turkey with all the trimmings. But that won't really matter much. The most important thing will be that God is the center of our celebration and for that I'm thankful.
There was a time not too long ago when I made a decision to turn my back on all things familiar and put my heart in God's hand along with my soon to be husband. I didn't know many Christians very well. I was not raised in a Christian home so I was doing this against the desires of my parents one of whom was raised Protestant and one Catholic. My friends for the most part were not going to be excited about it. When I was advised to go share what I had done with a friend I had to stop and think about who would be happy to hear about it.
My mother in particular was pretty unhappy about my decision. Since she was also pretty unhappy about my impending marrieage I was reluctant to talk to her about it very much. I chose to avoid the topic and just did what I felt was right as quietly and resolutely as I could.
That was how things stayed as I got married and gave birth to six children and raised them except that at one point I did talk to my Dad about my decision to be a Christian a few times and he was supportive each time although initially he wasn't happy about it. I think like a lot of Catholic folks of that era he wasn't sure that you could be a Christian outside of the Catholic church so he was kind of worried about what I was getting involved in at the little country church I had started attending.
So at times I felt pretty alone in my path I had chosen to walk down.
Which makes me all the more thankful to see all six of my offspring walking that path with me and hubby and leading their children along it too and walking hand in hand with their guys too! It's a far cry from the feeling of utter aloneness I had when I first got married and began to stumble along the Christian route. I often thought of the story of Noah's ark, in those days, and considered myself to be in the position that one of Noah's son's wives was in. (Yes I know I just ended a sentence with a preposition.) You see old Noah and his wife and his sons all got on the ark and his sons wives got on too but the wives families and friends didn't get on board. They stood outside and jeered and threw stones and then drowned. That's where most of my family and friends were when I got married and became a Christian. They were outside the relationship I was choosing and were making fun of me, jeering and in danger of drowning (spiritually speaking) and some of them still are. Because the fact that I made a change in my life did not prompt eveybody I knew and cared about to make that decision. But some have come on board since then and some have been born and then came on board.
I was thinking about all this during
the kid's club this week when I taught the preschooler's about the story of
Noah's ark.And now you know some of why I'm Thankfilled leading up to Thanksgiving Day.
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