Giving Thanks in Stormy Times…

The week after Halloween, we noticed a Christmas tree lit up through a neighbor’s window.  Then we saw another.  And another. I started counting the number of Christmas trees I saw.  I quit when I reached a dozen.  A dozen, I figure is a trend.  My neighbor down the street has already put up his outdoor Christmas lights, putting pressure on all the rest of the neighborhood. 

Thanksgiving this year will be different for so many families.  People are afraid to travel, older folks are afraid to gather, and who wants to get together with your crazy cousin who attacks you based on who you voted for? 

Maybe that is why we have gone from the sugar rush of Halloween straight to the hope of Christmas.  Thanksgiving is a speed bump this year.  There will be no audience at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and no cross-conference rivalry games.  Just today, I saw an article about people buying smaller turkeys because they will not be feeding as many people this Thanksgiving.  Makes me feel kind of sorry for all the fat turkeys.   

Many of us will be glad to see 2020 go.  We endured months of quarantine, dwindling supplies of toilet paper, masks, and separation from our loved ones.  Some families lost their loved ones.  Medical personnel, pastors, and caregivers are fatigued and burned out.  On top of the pandemic, we endured riots, debates, relentless political ads, and a yo-yo economy.  It has been a stormy year.   

In the Psalms, there are songs of lament.  These are prayers made to God in stormy times.  When you read them, what strikes you is how many include words of thanks.  How can you thank God in stormy times? 

You thank God in stormy times by refocusing.  You set aside your anxieties and look at your life from God’s perspective.  This requires being “non-me-centric” for a few minutes.  This change of view will cause you to see gifts from God you might have taken for granted. 

You realize life is a gift.  God did not have to allow you to be born.  He did not have to intervene to keep you alive.  God did not even have to design your incredible body that breathes without conscience thought and processes food into energy without your concentration.  When was the last time you thanked God for a body that functions as well as it does?   

Most of us have people in our lives that love us.  Do you think those people just came into your life by accident?  One of my closest friendships happened because I was assigned to share an office in grad school.  Accident or divine gift?  When is the last time you thanked God for the people in your life who encourage you and tell you the truth?   

Keep looking at your life from God’s perspective.  Most of you reading this column have more than you need.  Our economy emphasizes what you do not have in order to sell you more.  But consider your closet.  There have been kings in history who had fewer clothes than you have.  When was the last time you thanked God not just for what you have, but for having more than you need? 

I think sometimes about the life of my great-grandfather, who took his young wife and small children and made a wagon trip from North Florida to South Central Florida.  That trip must have taken him weeks.  I can drive it in four and a half hours.  I don’t know why God allowed me to live in a time of easy transportation and indoor plumbing, but I am grateful for both.  When was the last time you thanked God for letting you live now, instead of a different era of time? 

Especially in stormy times, God holds us.  He gives us strength.  He teaches patience.  He provides hope. Our anxieties can blind us to God’s gifts of character.  Character is formed in that part of your soul that is eternal.  When was the last time you gave thanks for God’s hand forming your soul? 

If you are a Jesus follower, there is of course the greatest gift of God.  The idea of being a “sinner” is
off-putting to people, but to accept that label is to embrace the deepest truth about our lives: we are broken people.  No one has it all together, some people just hide it better than others.  A Jesus follower chooses to believe that God, who is rich in mercy, sent his Son to earth to pay the penalty for our sins and to offer us a different life, a new birth.  When you embrace Jesus, it means your failure does not define you or determine your future; your relationship with God does.  He is not merely a benevolent being; God is your Heavenly Father.  You are adopted into his family.  No matter what storms come, nothing changes how much your Heavenly Father loves you.  When was the last time you thanked God for welcoming you into his family? 

Don’t rush past Thanksgiving.  Get perspective.  Give thanks.

What Will Thanksgiving Be?

Thanksgiving for me is our extended family gathering in the woods.  The tradition started in 1937.  My grandfather, Henry W. Smith, had died in that year of the Great Depression.  Granny Smith did not want to have the Thanksgiving meal in the house, so the family gathered outside on the banks of the Buckhorn Creek.  You can do that in November if you live in Florida.

After the creek flooded one year, they moved to a grove of black-jack oaks, where it has been every year since.  I was twenty-three days old when I went to my first Thanksgiving.  I’ve only missed one – when we lived in Kentucky and were awaiting the birth of our first child.

We’ll have a long table loaded with ribs, turkey, squash, brown rice casserole, broccoli casserole, and more.  For those of you not familiar with casseroles, add enough cheese and butter to anything and it will be good.  There are desserts that have so many calories and carbs that you will gain weight just by looking at them. 

 Two of my favorite delicacies will be served: swamp cabbage and guava cobbler.  You may not know it, but this is what you will eat in heaven.  I know this because Revelation promises there is no mourning or crying in heaven, which means there must be swamp cabbage and guava cobbler.

 We used to sit on hay bales, but recently upgraded to actual tables and chairs brought from the house.  The rumor that we made the switch because the hay bales no longer supported the weight of certain family members is a lie.

 We take pictures of each generation.  Since the death of my Aunt Ouida, I now find myself in the oldest generation.  I will hasten to point out I’m the youngest member of the oldest generation.

 After we have all eaten too much, after visiting with people we see only once a year but keep up with on Facebook, we slowly pack up the leftovers, and head back to what was my parent’s house, while other cousins scatter to other celebrations.  There are a few demented family members who walk the three miles back to the house, but I have never been tempted to join them.

 Everyone’s Thanksgiving will not be this way.  There will be a lonely widow in a nursing home, who will eat turkey provided by the staff.  They will be kind, but she will wonder why her children are not with her. 

 A solider in Syria who wishes he was settling in for a nap, is instead crouched behind a wall, dodging sniper fire.  ISIS, the Syrians, and whoever else is shooting over there do not celebrate Thanksgiving.

 A trooper somewhere will be standing beside a road, working an accident with fatalities.  He’s done it before, but it is more painful to watch a body being moved on a day when you are supposed to give thanks.

 A homeless man will stand in line for turkey and dressing.  He might wonder how his life came to this.  Someone will say to him, “Happy Thanksgiving,” but he finds it hard to count his blessings. 

 A surgical team will be in an operating room, doing a surgery that can’t wait. Somebody had to take call.  The surgery takes longer than they thought, and their Thanksgiving meal will come from a vending machine.

 A young couple, off at school, a long way from home, can’t afford to make the trip.  In their cramped apartment, they attempt to cook a turkey, but don’t know you have to thaw it first.  Their turkey turns to shreds, and they eat Chinese takeout for their first Thanksgiving together.  It makes their heart ache for home a little more.

 A child whose parents got in a violent fight the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving will be brought to a foster home.  He will sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with strange people, a little scared, not knowing how long he will be there.

 I don’t know what Thanksgiving will be for you.  But I know two things.  I know no matter where you are or what you are having to do, there will be something to give thanks for.  Find it.  Thank God. 

 And I know this: there will be someone you need to pray for this Thanksgiving.  Maybe you need to pray for their protection.  Maybe you need to pray for them to be encouraged.  Maybe you need to pray they will find hope. 

 No matter what Thanksgiving is for you, God will be there.  That, by itself, is reason enough to give thanks.

Before the Holidays, Pause…

The Holiday race is about to begin.  Thanksgiving will be the warm up.  We must lay in food, like people preparing for a famine.  We will haul out cookbooks to prepare what we only cook once or twice a year.  There will be kitchen disasters: cakes will fall, roasts will burn, and casseroles will not turn out like the pictures in Southern Living.  Our uncles, who will have a few too many beers, will attempt to fry a turkey, forgetting it first must be thawed.  We will all overeat, fall asleep in front of football games, and then rise in stupors to demolish left-overs, since we “only get to eat this once a year.”

Lists musts be made.  We will wake up early for Black Friday, and then click like mad on Cyber Monday.  The UPS man will break his back toting boxes to our door.  We will agonize over what to buy people who already have everything they need and most of what they want.  Our children will request the one toy that everyone is out of, except some obscure online retailer who doesn’t accept PayPal.

We will haul down the decorations from the attic and discover that we have fifteen strands of lights, of which only three work.  Our favorite ornament, the one our daughter made when she was in kindergarten, has been smashed into tiny slivers.  The tree which looked perfect at the tree lot now has a hole in the side.  A hurricane of tree needles appears every time we look at the tree.  We compare our sorry outdoor wreathes to the neighbors, who apparent have a connection with Martha Stewart, for theirs are perfect.

Travel plans must be finalized.  We have to figure out to get to the family reunion five hundred miles away and back in time for the three dozen Christmas plays, parties, and pageants involving our kids.  Parents ladle on the guilt if we are unable to deliver their grandchildren to them for their viewing pleasure.  Christmas itself can be a nightmare.  We have to go to MeeMaw’s, Granny’s, Nanna’s, Meme’s, and Baba’s house.  We are expected to eat at each one, have the children open presents at each one, and give a present to the woman who says, “Oh, you shouldn’t have” while silently comparing our gift to those from her other grandchildren.

We must go to the parties.  People keep score.  We have to go the Sunday School party, the School party, the Office party, the neighborhood party, the best customer’s party, the friends that drink wine party, the friends that don’t drink wine party, and the party given by the “cool” people (who invited you by mistake).

Because it’s the holidays, we feel like must go to see the lights at the park, at the zoo, at the guy’s house who numbers his lights in the millions, and the lights in the small town that turns itself into a tourist attraction every Christmas, putting a strain on the local nuclear power plant.  We must go to see “The Nutcracker,” and every “Singing Christmas Tree” in town.  Our friends from other churches tell us we can’t miss their living nativity scene; they’ll come to our musical if we go to their outdoor representation of Bethlehem.

There are TV shows we can’t miss.  We must see “The Christmas Story” for the twentieth time, to see if Ralphie will put out his eye this time.  We must watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas” again to see if Snoopy still wins first prize.  We must make sure that no Hallmark channel movie is missed.

Three days before Christmas, the cards start to pour in.  Our college roommate apparently has made a deal with the devil, because he has all his hair, his wife looks like a million dollars, his children have all finished their second doctorate, and his grandchildren are wait listed for Harvard, even though they have just finished potty training.  In a panic, we find the only picture we have of the whole family together – the one taken at the beach, where everyone looks great except yourself, because your eyes are closed and you are so sunburned you look like a lobster emerging from a boil.  We try to think up our accomplishments, but saying Junior got off probation doesn’t seem like it should make the list. 

Before we begin the race, maybe we need to pause.  Breathe.  Think.  What’s this all about?  Isn’t Thanksgiving about grace?  Isn’t Thanksgiving about a gracious God who gives you more than you deserve?  Isn’t Thanksgiving about thanking people in your life for their love?

Isn’t Christmas about God’s love?  Isn’t Christmas about God wanting to give you a deeper peace, something that can’t be bought?  Isn’t Christmas about joy, a deep sense of well-being?

Before the race begins, pause.  Breathe.  Think.  Thank.  Rejoice.  God gives to you. God is with you.  Thanks be to God.