As I sit and write I can't believe that in a week Thanksgiving Day will already be done and over. I have so enjoyed this fall so far. Yesterday I had a lot of driving to do but it was so beautiful the time just flew. It was gray out and it made the yellows and reds on the trees pop, truly spectacular. I have enjoyed different people posting about what they are thankful for and the anticipation of the Christmas season. Got me thinking about what I would say if somebody were to ask me what I am thankful for. Honestly, my mind and my heart really took off on this one and I am going to try to sort it out here. According to Wikipedia "Thanksgiving was a holiday to express thankfulness, gratitude, and appreciation to God, family and friends for which all have been blessed of material possessions and relationships." Maybe it is just me twisting things in my head, but the premise of this is that we are choosing to give thanks because God 'did' because we 'have'. As I prepare to cook the stuffing and the pies I have really been thankful not just to God, but for Him. I am thankful for my friends and family and all of the things that I have been blessed with. But I don't want to be thankful just because I have all of that. I am choosing to be thankful because I am grateful that God loves me. As dark as it sounds, just that He loves me doesn't mean that it will always be bountiful and easy, and I don't want to feel that I am only thankful because it is so good right now. Which brings me to the rant part of this post, how on Earth did we get to the place that we celebrate being thankful by waking up at 4am to go shopping for stuff we don't need?!?!?!? It would seem to me that thankful and content would go hand in hand, but alas, I am wrong. We want more and we want to pay less for it! I am so frustrated by my country's willing participation in this marketing frenzy that ends every year in people spending money that they don't have on stuff that they don't need. That doesn't sound very thankful to me. It also strikes me as odd that we would choose to celebrate being thankful just one day a year, that is all the time that we can take for that? I am really excited that this year our little family will be celebrating The Festival of Lights (Hanukkah). It seems to me that 8 days is a much more reasonable time to celebrate God and our thankfulness. We will still celebrate Christmas and the advent season as well, I don't think we should have to choose, so we are doing both! So there it is, I am very thankful for the many blessings that I have, yet without any of it I would still be sitting here in awe, that God would love me, as broken as I am.
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