Thanksgiving

Yesterday was Thanksgiving.  It is a day, when Americans traditionally eat too much and then lie down to spend an unquiet afternoon watching football.

Hopefully at some point, they feel grateful before they rush out to beat the crowds to buy the next electronic gadget that they really don't need.

When the Pilgrims celebrated a day of Thanksgiving in 1621, it was not because they had so much.  They had suffered much in their first year on American soil.  Many of their number had died and by modern standards, their houses were small and hardly insulated to face the harsh Massachusetts winter that lay before them.

Despite having little enough and no Black Friday sales to look forward to, these men and women sat down to a meal that focused not on themselves and their wants and desires and needs, but on the One who gave them what little they had.

What is it that makes us feel grateful?  Certainly it isn't having enough, because there have been plenty of times that I have had more than enough and I still was far from thankful.  It definitely isn't knowing folks that are worse off, because I know those people too and I still struggle with ungratefulness.

It is said that nine out of ten healed lepers don't think to say thank you. 

I sit here trying to figure out what makes the difference.  Why some people are grateful for little, while others are discontented with much.  I think there are many reasons, but I think gratitude is a conscious decision. 

You don't become a thankful person because you just happen into it, you become thankful because you look for ways that God's grace is revealed to you in your every day activities.  There are ways each day that the people you work with and spend time with, bless you.  In those moments, you must find ways to express your thanks.

More than that, thankful people find ways in which to pass on the grace that they have been given to others.

Thanksgiving is not about eating too much, or even making lists of things we are thankful for.  It is about consciously seeing the blessings in our lives and then, even more consciously, passing them on to others.

After a Stomach Bug

It always begins in the middle of the night with the sound of a child crying.  At least that's the way it is in our home when a stomach bug invades our hallowed walls.  This is followed by the afflicted child walking aimlessly along carpeted areas vomiting periodically until they reach a non-carpeted area of our home, at which point they cease throwing up.

The whole scenario is more than a little discouraging.

This pattern is fresh in my mind, because my son Vince experienced it this last week, as did my wife and I.  As a dad, helping to clean up the mess after the fact, I had a lot of sympathy for my son, but I also wondered why he hadn't headed for a bathroom at some point during his vomitory journey.

I suppose it is moments like these that make me appreciate my mother more.  I know that there were plenty of times when she was up caring for my siblings and me in the night, knowing at the same that she would have a full day's work in the her office the next day.

I won't ever enjoy when stomach viruses come to our homes, but I am glad that I am there to help in those "not so great moments."  Some day, a long time from now, my children will be cleaning up vomit in a hallway of their own and think about what these little deeds of service really mean.

They mean love.