Foodies, get your engines started.
It’s time for your favorite holiday of the year.
But first, let’s remember WHY we are actually coming together to eat.

Believe it or not, this holiday is NOT just about the oven browned turkey and cream laden mashed potatoes, crispy onion green bean casserole and pumpkin butter crunch (who says I’m into food).

Thanksgiving is the one holiday whose name tells us what we are supposed to do.
And we need this for our souls.

However the time we’ve set aside to give thanks is gradually diminishing from a day, to a meal, to “Let’s get done early so we can hit the sales.” Better yet, can we just get our turkey to go?”
People are now rushing through giving thanks for what they have, so they can stand in line for the things they are missing.
I wonder if anyone else sees the irony.

This year, commercialism made it even easier to override Thanksgiving, with sales that have already begun and are scheduled to last another week. They haven’t renamed the sale, because “Black Two weeks” doesn’t quite have the same ring.

People, let’s take a pause.
stop
If you wonder how in the world to do that, you can find a description by following this link: https://laurieshort.com/the-importance-of-taking-a-pause/

Stop “getting through” the cooking and shopping and checking off lists and racing through logistics, and take a moment to savor your life.
Not just the good things.
The mediocre things you’ll only realize were good after they’re gone.
Gratefulness is about seeing their goodness right now.

Here are some of those things for me:

  1. I’m thankful for my husband’s face on the pillow beside me. It reminds me that “goodness in the land of the living” was a promise kept. (Ps.27:13)
  2. I’m thankful for a boy who didn’t come from my womb but lives in my heart. He reminds me every day that love is at it’s best when its delivered with open hands.
  3. I’m thankful for the biological mom who bore the son I am helping raise. Without her, my shot at being a mom would not be possible
  4. I’m thankful for my “big fat” Serbian family, with it’s siblings and half siblings, parents and step parents, in laws and out laws, and everybody who shows up at the holidays to remind me that grace and love are packaged in the family mess.
  5. I’m thankful for a church that opens it’s doors to people’s mess- and brings us all together under an empty cross to show us there’s more to come after our brief stay here. http://oceanhills.org/

And as for that “brief stay”, it strikes me that the bad intermingles with the good, to bring us to the place where we are right now.
But the speed of our lives reminds us how fast our stories are moving, so the chapter we are currently in will not last.

Don’t let it pass without thanking God for it.
Thanksgiving was meant to be the day to do just that.