thankful

It’s Thanksgiving – happy Thanksgiving, everyone! By now I’m sure your kids have brought home their pilgrim crafts, and the turkey is on its way to the oven, if not there already. 

This year, I’m having a little trouble with the holiday. I’m discouraged that for so many, it’s a day of food and football. A lot of people won’t make it to church today, and devotions won’t be a prominent part of many meals. In fact, an informal poll I took at work showed that the most common thing people are thankful for is a long weekend. What happened to being thankful for a job?

I’m so well off that sometimes I forget to be thankful. But today, tinged with a feeling of sadness for the secular way most of the country observes the holiday, I feel profoundly grateful.

I’m spending my first Thanksgiving in a brand new house, something I never thought I’d own. Together, my high-school sweetheart and I are making it a home, the fifth in our 34 years of marriage. 

She and I will go to church in a while - she plans worship and plays piano, and I’m going to help lead. I know it will be a wonderful service. My best friends will be there, as well as my mom and dad and my daughter and her family.

Then I’m going to spend today with family, people I love one and all, and even though we probably voted for at least three different candidates we won’t care enough to talk about it. The fellowship is going to be as great as the food. 

These are blessings I’ll enjoy today, but they’re part of my life always, along with good health, a great job, and peaceful community, and material wealth. But the greatest blessing of all is the one I read about this morning, in Revelation 20:11-12 “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life.”

So I just want to take a moment and say, “Thank you, Jesus, for writing the book of life and putting my name in it. That would have been more than enough, but thank you too for all these amazing things in this awesome life I have.” Amen.