Thanksgiving

"Dad," Vince asked me the other day.  "Why is Thanksgiving in November?"

It's a good question.  Most of it has to do with Presidential edicts which initially (under Abraham Lincoln) established Thanksgiving Day as the last Thursday in November and later, under FDR switched it to the fourth Thursday in November.  The "first Thanksgiving" in Plymouth, Massachusetts was actually held in October, not November at all.

But of course, the Pilgrims didn't do Black Friday Sales either.

Regardless, the point of Thanksgiving is held in the word "thankful" and not in the timing of this holiday.  It is a time to count blessings and remember how grateful we are for the good of the last year. 

November is the time where harvest is in.  Most of us aren't farmers any more, but it is the time of year when those who make their living from the ground know whether it was a good year, an average year, or a year in which they will have their crop insurance agent on speed dial.

I'm not sure how good the harvest was this last year -- it probably depended on which part of the country you live in, but I trust that all of us can be grateful, even if it was not as plentiful as we'd like.

God is good.  He is just as good in times of want as in times of plenty.  The question is simply whether or not we can see His goodness when times are rough.

It is clear when we read of the First Thanksgiving in Plymouth Colony that the men and women who held this feast suffered much through their first year.  They had eked out a meager existence in this new land.  More than one third of their population had died that first year.  There were more new graves in the colony than there were pies at the Thanksgiving meal.  None of them knew if they would make it through the next year. They still knew that God was good.

A grateful heart thanks God for who He is, not just for what He has done.

This Thanksgiving I pray that we will spend time, not just in counting blessings, but in putting our hearts into a state of gratefulness.  Let us not focus so much on what we have been given but more on who is doing the giving.

This is the only way we can take Thanksgiving out of the fourth Thursday in November and pull it into the rest of the year.

Kidney Stones

The older man sitting across from me shrugged.  "I guess it passed some time on Sunday," he said.  "I've had them before, but I can't say I ever look forward to the experience."

I glanced down at the papers I had printed off.  "Looks like it was a 4 mm kidney stone," I said.  "Pretty amazing that something that small could cause so much pain."

"I hope it's awhile before I have to go through that again,"  he said.

Kidney stone pain is one of the more uncomfortable things a person can experience.  As I thought about it, I wondered what the difference was between labor pain and kidney stone pain.  Is one more intense than the other?

I have experienced neither one of these glorious things personally, although I've helped plenty of mothers in labor and seen other folks who felt like they were passing a bowling ball through their ureters.  Google wasn't my friend either and didn't seem to have any conclusive answer as to which pain is worse.

Peppers have a Scoville Scale to rate their spiciness, but the closest thing we have to a pain scale is the one where nurses ask you to rate your pain on a scale of one to ten.  Not very useful when a lot of folks out there wish that this scale went to eleven.

Clearly the biggest difference between kidney stone pain and labor pain is in the end result.  No one ever keeps their kidney stones, names them, or is happy at their passing -- except that it results in relief of pain.  On the other hand, labor ends in a crying baby and announcements far and wide about the new life that has entered the world.

It seems to me that this is a perfect metaphor for the differences in how a nihilist and a Christian experience pain in their lives.  The nihilist believes that suffering has no purpose.  It is to be avoided at all cost and demonstrates only that the Universe is a cold, unfeeling place.

On the other hand, the Bible tells us that "...we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." (Romans 5:3-5)

Everyone will experience pain at some point.  The question is whether suffering proves to us that there is a heartless Universe or a Loving God behind the things we experience.

For me, it is clear that there is a Master plan at work in my life, even when I don't know all of the details of it.  God loves me and that's enough to see me through whatever pain I may face -- even kidney stones.

Autumn

Autumn is here.  There have been hundreds (maybe thousands) of poets who have written odes to its splashes of crimson and brilliant yellow leaves.  Every aspect of Fall has probably been explored in one way or another.

It doesn't change the fact that it is beautiful.

Looking out of the windows of our home, I see the colors of the woods that surround us.  I can see clearly that there is loveliness in every season and Fall is no exception. 

This is God's plan.

After having lived through forty-three Autumns (I can only remember about thirty-nine of them), I know something else.  This season won't last.

The reds and yellows of the leaves will soon be replaced by bare branches and mounds of brown leaves in my yard that someone (hopefully my children) will need to rake into piles.  Autumn's beauty is only for a season.

This too is part of God's plan.

I am afraid that all too often I miss the beauty of the season I am in.  In my mind I think it will be around for longer, or I am just looking forward to the next season.  It's awfully easy in the middle of winter to wish for spring, but the most joyful people are those who can enjoy the season they are living in at present.

This is true for more than just the weather and the leaves.  Most of life is characterized by seasons.  There are seasons of school and having children and eventually, maybe even having grandchildren.  The most important thing is to treasure today and see the beauty of the present rather than wish for what tomorrow holds.

It will arrive far sooner than we like.