In Everything Give Thanks

Thanksgiving. Family. Turkey. Football. Pie bellies…

So many times we rush through holidays and never take the time to contemplate their meaning and intent. Thanksgiving was first celebrated in 1621 when the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November. Unlike the first settlers of this great land, we live in a constant state of abundance often never truly realizing the blessing and gift that provision truly is.

Photo Credit: @amesandemes Instagram

This year my family won’t celebrate with a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with our extended family as usual. Instead we have done a couple of different things to express our thanks to God for all of his blessings. We have been in Costa Rica at St. Bryce Mission. We celebrated with our dear missionary friends as well as our new friends from the Cabecar tribe who live in the Chirripo Mountains. An almost parallel picture of the first Thanksgiving. (More on this later- the experience deserves an entire post!) But today I want to tell you about a beautiful day of thanks that I had last week.

The week before Thanksgiving I hosted Bible Study as usual at our farmhouse. I wanted to make it special and have been dying to have a reason to bring a table out under the grandfather oaks with my collection of mismatched chairs. I told the girls that I was planning something special and that we’d be outside. And outside we were! The weather couldn’t have been more beautiful and the vintage chandelier that was original to our house looked as if it belonged hanging from the long arm of the fatherly live oak. As we tenderly shared our hearts and our thanks to God, tears were shed. But before you think this is a picturesque scene from a fairly tale, let me share what happened next.

God kindly reminded us that we were in his raw and wild creation just as a lizard who scurried up my chair proceeded to climb atop my HEAD!!! As my friend tried to brush him off he hustled right down my nose and leapt upon the table and into one of our Bible study books! Luckily this sweet little boy unashamedly claimed the lizard for his pet for the remainder of the morning and all was well.

We left thanking God for everything from rescuing us from difficult situations, seeing us through dry times of perseverance, blessing us beyond our wildest imaginations and reminding us to laugh. What will you take time to thank Him for today?

“Better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere.” Psalm 84:10