From the Pulpit: Return to give thanks

This past Sunday, my family got together in Mitchell to celebrate “Thanksgiving” in August – kind of like Christmas in July! Those of my immediate family who live in the local area, including my niece and nephew getting ready to return to college, gathered around my parents dining room table for Thanksgiving. It was a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, which included a roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, secret dressing along with all the other fixings. Thanksgiving Day plates and napkins decorated the table. The best part about it was that it was 80 degrees outside, too, and not the beginning of the wintry cold. The only thing really missing was regular season football games – I couldn’t cheer on my Packers!

You may wonder, why Thanksgiving in August? As some local residents might know, I am being deployed along with many other Airmen as part of the 114th Fighter Wing to the Middle East in September for approximately six months. It is not my first deployment but my fifth, and it won’t be the first actual Thanksgiving that I will have missed, but one of many. My mother insisted that we would have the traditional Thanksgiving early. Why Thanksgiving? Why not Christmas – then I would get some gifts! Why not New Years? Halloween – maybe I could break out my high school costume of the headless horseman, with a real pumpkin on my head? Veteran’s Day? No, it had to be Thanksgiving!

Shouldn’t every day be Thanksgiving? A day to remember many blessings and the gratitude we want to show to others, especially our God, for all the ways that His and the hands of others are involved in our lives. Our civil holiday of Thanksgiving is one day out of the year that we remember to give thanks. It is a holiday that friends of mine who are not Americans find rather fascinating. “One day out of the year, simply to give thanks?” It fascinates them, perhaps out of envy, that Americans understand the importance of recognizing our blessings, at least once a year, and hopefully more.

I was reminded as I attended the Prayer Breakfast at the Brandon Valley PAC a little over a week ago how thankful I am that our community recognizes God in our lives and in our schools. It could be so easy to just accept the blessings and gifts that are bestowed upon us, but not see where they emanate from – God. Remember in the scriptures, Luke 17:17,18 when Jesus healed the 10 lepers as they were journeying to visit the priest. All 10 were cured but only one recognized where that healing came from: “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” Can we recognize our blessings, healings, and love and return to give thanks? Be thankful for family and our freedoms…thankful for our country and friends. What else are we thankful for? Who are we thankful for? Do they know? Why not tell them – today?

Thanksgiving in August it was. My family gathered around the dining room table of my childhood home in Mitchell…filling our bellies with delicious turkey, stuffing, potatoes and trying to save room for the pumpkin pie with whipped cream. We gathered to eat, to tell stories and to give thanks. We don’t have to wait till November to return and give thanks!