Giving Thanks Looks Different This Year

Thursday is Thanksgiving Day!  My mind and heart are all abuzz with preparations.  I'm busy making lists, dreaming of how to set the table, deciding on recipes, buying our favorite foods, cleaning the house for guests and early in the morning, considering gratitude....what God deserves from me this year.

If you've read previous posts recently, you know that I keep a daily list of what I'm grateful for (and encourage the four people who live with me to do so as well), so how can Thanksgiving Day be significant, different, special?  

Everybody's talking about it.  That tiny little phrase we see everywhere all month long....Give Thanks. I've placed reminders all over the house.  We probably agree that it's easy to give thanks when the sun is shining and our world is all as it should be. We quickly think of our families, our friends, our health, our stuff, our faith. All good things but what if it's not all good?  Perhaps you, like me, can reflect on this last year and ask "what went wrong?".

For us, this year has been very different than previous ones.  It's not been easy.  Our family has adjusted to many changes, pretty drastic at times.  Traumatic, even. So as I spend quiet moments this week seeking to present God with a grateful heart, I know what I need to do.  This November, I will practice giving thanks for the things I don't want.  You read it right.  The things that have invaded my typically smooth, happy, and predictable life.  The stuff I didn't "sign up for".

This kind of gratitude is not for wimps and if I'm honest, I'm pretty wimpy most of the time.  However, even in the face of this glaring weakness, I don't want an opportunity to be lost.  Everything is an opportunity. Have you heard that growth occurs more often in the valley than on the mountaintop?  That growth in the garden comes after a hard rain (storm)?  These truths roll right off the tongue when we're not experiencing that sort of pain. 

"Gratitude follows grace as thunder follows lightening — and the storm is grace and this is the grateful harvest: whatever drives us into God"*

Storm - check.  Driven to God - check.  Now the grateful harvest.  I want to see the harvest.  I want this life, this family to reflect the harvest of God's faithfulness.  God really is good all the time.  We will give thanks in all circumstances.  When we do, we are telling God that we trust Him.  No matter what.  Kind of like wedding vows...in sickness and in health....for richer or poorer.  We belong to a great God and loving Father who deserves our trust and praise. I can speak for the Burtis family when I say He's got ours.

So we list the things we received in 2012 that we did not ask for, expect or even want, frankly. Trials. Confusion.  Heartbreak.  Endings.  Loneliness.  More change.  When we bring it to God with thanks, He takes the sting of what we could perceive as negative and turns it to positive.  He assures us everything is going to be ok.  Did you get that?  When we say "thank you" to God, He hears "I trust you" then He comforts and blesses. 

I've been quite overwhelmed these past few weeks with God's gift to us in the form of encouragement, strength, and grace.  Often it comes when we least expect it, but most need it.  He has used people, His people to be His arms and heart showering us with unsolicited, undeserved love.  I chose those words carefully (because I love words, remember)......encouragement, strength, grace, love, showering, unsolicited, undeserved, love - mirroring God Himself.  These gifts have come in wonderful ways.  Notes, meals, visits, calls, provision, specific Scriptures, friendship and prayers.  I love the last three so so much.

This might sound a little hokey but sometimes I see it in the eyes.  Lately, when we spend time with people we love, I've noticed it.  It is the way they look at me and the way I see them looking at Scott eye to eye that speaks so much without words.  This is the stuff that matters and makes me cry a little. I see God's handprints all over it.

The only answer to God's unending grace is my unending gratitude."*

So I guess Thanksgiving for me this year is about receiving with thanks that which I don't want and what makes me (us) feel loved.

I pray you will have a similar experience. That no matter what you've lived this last year you can give praise to God for all of it....the good, the bad and the ugly. Dig deeper.  As you do, you will be able to see all the ways He shows His love to you.  Then you can give thanks for that too.  No wonder He has commanded that we give thanks in all things....it's because everything is Him and He is everything!  Don't be too busy to notice.

 A Thanksgiving Song (my favorite parts):

The sun comes up
It's a new day dawning
It's time to sing your song again
What ever may pass and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes
 Bless the lord oh my soul
Oh my soul
Worship his holy name
Sing like never before
Oh my soul
I worship your holy name
You're rich in love and you're slow to anger
Your name is great and your heart is kind
For all your goodness I will keep on singing
10,000 reasons for my heart to find**

Happy Thanksgiving. 

*Ann Voskamp
**10,000 Reasons by Matt Redman