Thankful Thursday
With Thanksgiving as the season’s best moment, the fall is my favorite time of year. In my world, pumpkin is the absolute spice of life and this is when you can find it just about everywhere. Despite not liking pumpkin pie at all, I love basically anything else pumpkin related, from pumpkin patches to pumpkin spice lattes to pumpkin butter. The more the better. Watching the leaves change into vibrant shades of gold, burnt orange, and red, I believe is God’s way of reminding me that change is divinely stitched into the fabric of life. Even though it is more unpredictable than I prefer, I’m increasingly grateful for God's ongoing amazing and careful attention, in that each day, received as a gift, He continues helping me grow closer to Him. Whether they are big or small, each circumstance stands alone, but God is there with me as promised. In cycling our way through the seasons like this, I am attuned to an endless list of reasons I need to be thankful and praise God, while also praying without ceasing.
In preparation for Thanksgiving, I am the kind of person who becomes transfixed to the TV, lost in a trance, unashamedly binge-watching cooking shows. Some of them offer tips about how to cook the perfect turkey while other shows remix holiday side dishes or tell you how to craft new meals with leftovers. Whether you are a carnivore, vegan, or omnivore, I hope you will agree that food unites us in special and particular ways. Thanksgiving enables us to artfully celebrate the wide spectrum of our humanity, of course, through a smorgasbord of foods reflecting distinct ethnicities, techniques, and cultures. Breaking from the traditions some still hold dear, nowadays turkey is no longer the only star of the show. We are much better now at recognizing and embracing that people host buffets of seafood, tamales, butternut squash, lasagna, leek and potato casserole, cornbread dressing, roasted cauliflower, and kale salads—and don’t forget the pies and cakes, and other desserts. Although I don’t regularly fix a bunch of dishes for Thanksgiving, I love the thought of one day hosting my own “Friendsgiving” party.
After the first few years of marriage, my husband and I started our own little ritual of spending Thanksgiving vacationing together, just us, and participating in some form of community service, usually in a soup kitchen, wherever we were. Without any guilt or apology, oftentimes on Thanksgiving we make the liberated decision to eat at a restaurant instead of at home. “Thanksgiving is the holiday where gratitude is always the main dish. A grateful heart certainly serves us well all year round,” writes Hoda Kotb in her book, I Really Needed This Today: Words to Live By.
No matter what family routines or alternative plans you adopt for this holiday, make sure it involves more than only scarfing down tons of meat, on the hand, or trying desperately to avoid gaining weight. Calm down. It is just one day. It is okay to relax and enjoy yourself, but it is vital that we also reserve time to practically “give thanks.” If there’s one thing that Thanksgiving shouldn’t be about, it is selfishness. It is a time, if we choose, that we can count the cost of what we are grateful for while also looking to brighten someone else’s day. It is an opportunity to break bread with loved ones, neighbors, and even some strangers around a table to build bridges of empathy and honor. Maybe it goes without saying, but the people we eat with ought to be infinitely more important than any of the food.
We are connected by the simplicity of what brings mankind together, not our differences or conflicts. Thanksgiving is about treasuring what we have, resisting the internal and external urge to endlessly gripe about what we lack. I refuse to allow capitalism’s idols of consumption to darken this day with the allure of early Black Friday deals and so much more designed to turn our attention elsewhere. In whatever you do today (or any other day), indulge in the goodness of this crazy life and even more in the goodness of a Savior, who is faithful to us body and soul, both in life and in death.