11/23/22
‘Tis the season for overdoing it, I suppose. I remember a commercial from the 70s that warned us, “When you indulge, you bulge!”
Having been in ministry for 38 years, I consider myself a connoisseur of pot-lucks – and Sunday’s was one of the best ever! Everything was absolutely delicious! I’m not a huge turkey fan, but I went back for seconds. For me, turkey is often bland and dry, but not what Tyler cooked for us! And Bethany did a wonderful job organizing everything, and her decorations were beautiful. So, thank you to Tyler and Bethany for making this Thanksgiving pot-luck extra special!
But, dinners like that have consequences! I was in a meeting Sunday afternoon when I got three calls in a row from my neighbor. When that happens, it usually means she’s fallen and needs help. I excused myself from the meeting (all that turkey put me in a tryptophan coma anyway, and I needed to walk around) and called her back. Her emergency? She wanted help stringing Christmas lights on her tree! Which, of course, when I got home, I was glad to do . . . but afterward she said, “Now we’re going out for dinner - my treat!” I had to take a rain-check; I was so stuffed from our Thanksgiving pot-luck, I couldn’t have eaten a single wafer-thin mint.
Yes, it’s really easy this time of year to over-do things. But there are some things we are safe to over-indulge on – in fact, I’d say you can’t over-do these:
Memories. I said Sunday that being thankful is remembering, and remembering means we’re not taking good things for granted. Some of my most wonderful memories center around the table at Thanksgiving. There are funny memories, like the time the oven didn’t work Thanksgiving Day, and the turkey was raw (mom did not find that funny at all). Then there was the time the oven caught on fire (that was dad cooking the oyster dressing – mom found that hysterical), or when we served my nephew pickled pigs’ feet instead of turkey (he did not find that funny). But mostly, it is memories of the family being together. I am thankful for those memories!
For some, memories of the holidays are tinged with sadness. Thanksgiving and Christmas can be difficult. We probably all know someone who has lost a loved one since last Thanksgiving. In our remembering, we don’t want to forget them! If you know folks who are grieving during the holidays, or who are alone for whatever reason, be certain to reach out to them and let them know you’re thinking about them.
Being present in the moment. We often get so busy, we fail to enjoy the moment as it’s happening. During a particularly difficult time, when my mom was recovering from cancer surgery, my dad and I watched a TV production of Our Town. In the last scene, Emily, who has died, has a chance to go back and relive a day from her life. She chooses her 12th birthday, and seeing her mother alive and young again just going through the daily actions of a simple morning was too much for her. Emily says, “All this was going on and we never noticed.” I vowed then and there I would stop and pay attention more and try not to take life for granted. Treat the ordinary as sacred. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, “the world is full of wonderful things that no one, for any reason, ever sees.” Elisabeth Elliot said, “There are times when the entire arrangement of our existence is disrupted, and we long then for just one ordinary day – seeing our ordinary life as greatly desirable, even wonderful, in the light of the terrible disruption that has taken place. Difficulty opens our eyes to pleasures we had taken for granted.”
Family and friends. One of the greatest gifts God gives to us is the gift of one another. God has knit us together like a great quilt of his love. Like I said Sunday, were it not for the grace of God, most of us wouldn’t know each other. But it is God’s love that has brought us together – let us not take that granted! One of the best ways we can honor one another is to pay attention, be in the moment, and show our gratitude. To say to someone, “I am grateful for you,” is a powerful blessing. Verse 3 of “For the Beauty of the Earth” is a beautiful prayer of gratitude for friends and family::
For the joy of human love,
brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild,
Lord of all to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of praise.
Thankfulness. True, Thanksgiving is a secular holiday, but it needn’t be so. Gratitude is a defining characteristic of a Christian, and gratitude is something that everyone – rich or poor – can experience. Monday, I worked at LCCI, taking shopping carts of food to our client’s cars – that was the best job! I got to see firsthand the joy in the faces of those to whom we ministered when I loaded down their cars with their Thanksgiving food. They loved the colorful bags we gave, by the way – and they were all, every last one of them, grateful. One young mother with tears in her eyes, told me her struggle to find food for Thanksgiving this year. By the way, when I was loading her groceries into her car, I saw she was getting one of our bags. Whoever included a cake pan in your bag, know it was your gift that brought tears – and relief – to her eyes. These are tough times for many people, and your generosity as a congregation brought great joy to many families. And I know your generosity flowed from thankful hearts –thankful to be able to share from the bounty of your own blessings. A. W. Tozer wrote, “Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it.”
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! And not only that . . . my prayers are that we can cultivate a constant sense of gratitude that Max Lucado writes about: “The grateful heart is like a magnet sweeping over the day, collecting reasons for gratitude.”
Blessings!
Pastor Terry