With Thanks

To my readers in Slovakia and places other than the U.S., Thanksgiving Day, always the fourth Thursday in November, is one of the biggest and grandest holidays in the U.S. The featured image is representative of what will be repeated thousands upon thousands of times this next Thrusday as families, often multi-generational, will gather around a table to share an elaborate meal together.

According to the Transportation Security Adminsitration, 30 million Americans will fly between November 17 and 28. The American Automobile Association estimates 49.1 million will drive more than 50 miles to their holiday destination.

While the majority of the populaton will celebrate is some way, there will be other millions of people without family with whom to spend Thanksgiving Day for dozens of reasons – broken relationships, deaths, illness, incarceration, homelessness, lack of family or lack of resources – to name a few.

Many are anticipating the day and others dreading it. Some will create new and treasured memories and others will have painful experieces they want to forget.

Personally, I am planning to drive 25 miles to spend the day at my sister’s home with six other members of my extended family. However, there have been many years I have spent Thanksgiving Day without family. At times I have been alone. Sometimes I have shared the day with friends and at other times not celebrated at all.

Wherever I am and whoever is with me, I want most of all to say from the depths of my being, “I am glad to be me here with you.” There is no greater joy than to have the three aspects of that statement combined and filling my time and space: being glad to be me; being glad to be here; being glad to be with you.

I am glad to be me

God created me in His image, placed me in a particular family, in a certain place, at a specific time in history. Everything I have had, have now or will have is from His hand. I am grateful for all of it. Most of all, because of Jesus, God gave me a new life in Him and purpose. As deeply flawed as I am, I know I am loved and accepted by Him and have no one to please but Him. Even when I am most disappointed in myself, most selfish, most unloveable, I am still glad to be me because I know I am forgiven and God will patently correct me. For those of you who can say the same, you are as blessed as I am. For those who cannot say this yet, it is still possible for you.

I am glad to be here

I am thankful to be here at this moment in time. I am equally glad to be wherever the “here ” is in space. The joy of that is I am not longing to be somewhere else. I can be present in the moment. I can carry a sense that there is meaning and purpose in being where I am right now. It has not always been so. God had to teach me many lessons before I could say honestly and consistently “I am glad to be here.”

I am glad to be with you

God is relational and He created us for relationships with Him and with one another. Whoever you are, when I am with you I am grateful. The moment we have together in any place will not be repeated. Any next time we have, I will be different and you will be different. Maybe part of what will change us is our being together.

I was not always able to say this. There are still so many lessons I must learn about relatonships. But if I believe God has a purpose in our being together – whatever that may be and though I may not understand – then I want to be grateful and glad to be with you.

Even on a Thanksgiving Day when I was sad, hurt, and without human company, because Jesus was with me I could say, “I’m glad to be me here with you.” In fact, He says that to us.

My prayer

Father, whether this Thursday is a special day to some or an ordinary day to others, may those who read this be able to say with gratitude to you they are glad to be who they are. If they cannot, please bring them to that place. May you also give them the ability to see meaning and purpose in where they are. In their relationsips, whether difficult or serene or joyous, may they give and grow in ways that produce thankfulness. I ask these things in the name of Jesus.