Posts Tagged ‘Thousand Thanks’

I have been feeling far from home. A lot has occured among my extended family in the past two years. Within our growing group there have been three blessed births (including our own little Boo), one unexpected death, a not-so-unexpected but rather sudden wedding, a car accident, injuries and recoveries, graduations, financial troubles and successes, and life’s ceaseless circle of holidays, gatherings, and celebrations, Thanksgiving being my favorite. I would like to be able to share the joys, help with the needs, and hold a hand when a hand needs holding, but I can do so only from a distance. I am too far from the hands-on cherishing of extended family. (Somebody call the WHAAAAmbulance.)

Wishing does little, and self-pity even less. I am blessed. I am blessed to have an extended family that loves us and prays for our well-being and faithfulness. (If this is a stretch and they merely tolerate us, then I shall blissfully remain in my delusional world.) I am blessed to have a quiet and peaceful (loud and boisterous, actually) celebration here with my own dear ones, something I adore! I am blessed that this year I do not have to share my allotment of Stephen’s savory gravy–a precious commodity already stretched too thin among the eight of us, never mind leftovers. I am blessed to live here in the desert where I never wanted to be and where God is teaching me contentment.

I remember at Thanksgiving that God has us in our desert for a reason, for His season, and my duty is to be grateful and serve Him here. It is a day and a life meant for gratefulness, not self-pity, and shame on me for my distraction and my selfishness. Others have moved far from family and off their land, and they did not lose themselves in a mire of pity–the Pilgrims come to mind.

Ah, the Pilgrims. I love the week or two leading up to Thanksgiving. We have been enjoying an in-depth study of the Pilgrims this year, thanks to numerous free resources that homeschoolers love to share, as well as through Barbara Rainey’s treasure given to us by a dear friend. It is a parent’s delight (and sometimes dismay) to note what children take from a lesson. My children are enthralled with the fact that Miles Standish, a grown man, actually named his sword and spoke to it as if it were a friend. They can’t get over it–a grown man after all. They wonder if he introduced his sword to people he met: “Hi, I’m Miles Standish and this is Gideon. He will understand if you don’t wish to shake his hand.”

I think the point that struck them and me most–as it always does–is the Pilgrim’s open and genuine trust in and gratitude toward God no matter what, not acknowldging Him as a distant spirit, but binding their lives to Him as a just and caring Savior. The minute details of God’s providence during their journey from Scrooby to Leiden to Cape Cod and through those first years is remarkable and so often overlooked in today’s self-absorbed (guilty!) Thanksgiving particpants. The pilgrims gave God full credit for their successes and turned all matters of necessity to Him in prayer, with amazing success. In a world so willing to lay down principles and overturn beliefs, it is refreshing to remember the Pilgrims and the sacrifices they made–enormous sacrifices we pampered Americans cannot fathom–for faith, family, and Godly principles. It reveals my pity-party for what it is–trivial and sinful.

However blessed I am to have my dear husband and precious children to spend this day with, I am even more blessed that the God who brought the Pilgrims to a world where they could worship freely is the same God who guides my little family, who rules our lives with His sovereign will, and for whom we too must and will sacrifice with willing and grateful hearts.

Enjoy your day, your family and friends, the food, and the providence of a God who supplies all things. As for me, the pity party has ended, and I count my many thanks.

…a warm fire on a chilly Thanksgiving morning

…a tousle-haired boy who smiles when he sees me

…children with words spilling over

…full pantries and freezers and two pies made by two small girls

…that dog

…a man with strong arms who roasts an amazing (and heavy) turkey

…those Americans who are not blind to the decay of a once great and God-fearing country

…those who work the earth and love it and give a bit of it up to all of us

…a few minutes of silence to listen to Him

…this day, this desert, this duty–this place and time and season of service

A blessed Thanksgiving to all! May you truly live in gratefulness, as this is one of His means of gifting you with joy.

In His wisdom He saw fit to give this imperfect and broken remnant of His creation five daughters. Five girls who reflect my strengths and mirror my weaknesses.

I am grateful…

…for tears wept on my shoulder, not into a pillow or a telephone.

…to have once been a young girl, so as to know what it’s like to think you know and want to know and yet not know, to be always between being and becoming.

…for feminine modesty in the young.

…that my girls realize their intrinsic worth as a crucial part of the family, feeling enough ownership in the daily operations of our home that they even take it upon themselves to rearrange the kitchen drawers and cupboards. If anyone has a spare 4-cup glass measuring vessel, mine has been relocated into the vast unknown.

…for young hips that instinctively pop out to support a baby.

…for waist-length hair on four heads begging for Christmas Eve curls and feminine braids.

…for waist-length hair on four heads needing only the occasional trim.

…for pre-teens that like stuffed animals, model horses, soft kittens, singing from the hymnal, old musicals, hearing stories from their parents’ youth, playing duets with family, and chatting with Mommy.

…for daughters who thrill over surprising Daddy with baked treats, morning coffee, notes and cards, and special projects. I love that my girls love their Daddy.

…beyond words that all four of my readers spend time in the Word of God, discuss it, ask questions, and apply it.  Our home is nice, but my greatest desire is for all of us to share in the heavenly mansion.

For my girls, I praise God.

Children are a gift from the Lord.

Consider your own thousand thanks, or perhaps step out a bit and join the Gratitude Community at Holy Experience.

Click on any picture of my girls to enlarge.

I have long been a believer in the power and beauty of a simple thank you. It is a wonder, then, that having come across the Gratitude Community at Holy Experience–individuals committed to focusing on finding simple thanks in the everyday gifts of a gracious God–it has taken me several weeks if not months to add my personal praises. Why such silence? I am not sure.

Perhaps it is because at times bitterness overtakes us, me, and I choose to suppress a thankful heart. Other times are showered in such pleasant bliss that gratefulness must certainly be evident, so there appears no need to express it. Maybe it is more than that. Often we forge ahead in this walk, seeking out God’s path, battling those who would drag us from it or even, however well-meaning the intention, would lay themselves across it as obstacles in our pursuit of God’s will. It is difficult for us, me, to find thanks when the path God has set aside for me is pitted with pain, difficulty, and discouragement. This heart of mine is weak and wavers…not my faith, my heart. While my words may shock the stalwart few, it is my personal truth. It is not easy to thank God when His way is difficult, His voice seems distant, His path is unclear, or His idea of what we can handle is just a bit more than ours, even with His help. When the ungodly claw, the churched discourage, and the path is undefined, it is hard to thank He who has the power to right all things on earth, but chooses not to.

And yet, in Christ there is joy. In Him there is hope and true life and a love none can know apart from Him. Even on the dark and pitted path, the rocky road, the lonely desert way, He is there, His grace guides, His hard lessons teach, and there is a need for this humble heart to give thanks.

I bend to this task with a willing heart.

My thousand thanks…the first of many:

1. As a starting point, the obvious: My husband, our children, our home, health, job…all the obvious! So often that which is too obvious is overlooked.

2. I am thankful that the small shivering boy beside my bed at 2 a.m. has merely wet the bed and is shivering with cold, rather than having thrown up with the shivering effects of a 104 fever. Experience and a media-driven fear of swine flu speak loudly at 2 a.m. I can smile and mean it as I tuck his small body in a warm bed and hear his whispered “T’ank you, Mommy.”

3. There is little as endearing as the small cry of a baby seeking her mother in the darkness, calling out, knowing Mama will come, knowing Mama will fold her close and fill the small tummy with sweet, warm nectar. I am undyingly grateful to be chosen as this child’s mother, the comforter, nursing under a quilt of darkness when all others sleep, inhaling deeply the infant smells, her small body relaxing into mine in an embrace of trust and drowsiness. This is our time: hers and mine and His.

4. No words can express how precious it is to me that my girls have a father, caring, involved, devoted, and wise. There are no words for such a treasure.

5. Likewise, it is with pleasure that I watch my son emulate his Daddy, knowing that if the little one is an exact replica of his father, faults and all, I will thank God for giving us such a man! (Naturally, I will still blame the faults on his Daddy. Which reminds me…number 6.)

6. While I blame, he forgives. I thank God for a patient husband. While that may seem obvious, I also thank God for the less-patient man my husband was when we first wed, for all the mistakes, the pain, and the growth we have weathered together. It makes every day with him sweeter and more precious.

7. I find it difficult to thank God for my dog after he ate the only tomato I have successfully been able to grow despite nine years of effort in our desert. Yet, when I thought he was dying last night, moaning over the effects of the toxic nightshade leaves he ingested during his garden raid, I realized I would, indeed, miss his forgiving temper, expectant face, exuberant greetings, and protectiveness. For those things I am grateful…although not exuberantly so. (Did I mention the importance of honesty in our gratitude?)

8. I am even more grateful that I did not have to drag a dying 130-pound dog across the house, into the van, and to the vet 70 minutes away at 11 at night.

9. A mother’s heart warms at fists full of pollen-ridden weeds affectionately deposited in a noxious pile in the family kitchen. “For you, Mommy!” Young hand across nose, rubbing eyes as they tear and swell. I am grateful that we found a natural allergy-reliever for the child who loves nature, but whose affections are greeted with sneezing, swollen eyes, and misery.

10. Truly, I am thankful that the three-year-old boy belting out his ABCs at the upper decibel levels, jarring awake our nap-aversive baby, can, indeed, sing, learn, and love…as evidenced by the exuberance with which he pounces on the little sister as soon as (or often before) her eyes flicker open, smothering her in kisses until she cries for Mama’s rescue. For the promises these glimpses of my future man hold, I am grateful.

I lift these thanks to the almighty God.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights.

If you visit Holy Experience’s Gratitude Community, I encourage you to wander through Ann’s site. She has a gift and a humble heart, a rare combination.