Thanksgiving Thoughts

A thankful heart does not always come easy. Thankfulness in times of pain and struggle can be difficult. When I began to make thankfulness a practice in my life. I don't think I knew how hard it would be sometimes to find the joy in the everyday. I don't always succeed but what I can say is this. A truly thankful heart holds little room for bitterness, anxiety and other negative emotion. At least this is my experience, I  sure there are thankful folks out there who struggle all the time with fighting off the darkness in their life. What I am trying to say is that thankfulness is a journey though those things and can be a great antidote.

This year I decided my word was celebration, this was to be a year of celebration and largely it has been. Today as Canada celebrates my favourite Sunday, Thanksgiving, I find my heart battling the idea of celebrating. I so want to focus on all that isn't instead of all that is. I sad and workings way through loss and transition and it's been tough to be thankful but I am choosing to be thankful anyway.

What I am thankful for today is a long and varied list, full of sacred and silly, things seen and unseen. I am thankful for both things in the past and present. My heart will choose the joy, the celebration and while I will still be sad, I will celebrate all the God has done for us.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

September's Story

Image
I feel like I have written a few blog posts in honour of friends who have passed and sadly I have another. This one is close to my heart and has been percolating for a few days now. It feels sacred somehow and I'm not entirely sure I want to share it just yet so if you read know that for all the missing details and possibly inaccurate ones this is my narrative on what has easily been one of the most abstract and yet important friendships my grown up life. Long ago when the Internet was new, there existed these strange things called message boards where you interacted with complete strangers using whatever pseudonym you desired. I don't even remember how I stumbled across the Steven Curtis Chapman fan boards but I did. We were a grand group of strangers who became friends. There were so many of us. One of the younger ones started a community we fondly called Chapmanville and many of us moved in and claimed residency with fictitious jobs and so much more. It was a virtual world
Read more

For Mrs D

Image
Grief has visited me once again. And for all the people I have lost in the last 4 years, this one hurts so differently, so deeply. I didn't know that grief could change my taste buds and make me so afraid to close my eyes. I didn't know you could wake up all ready in tears. This is different. This is the pain of loosing someone who isn't old, who isn't sick but who is your own age and who shares your everyday story, This is different some how. In many ways I am still in shock and survival mode. And so I will write because writing is sometimes the only way I can even begin to let go of the pain. I first met Rose when I was dating one of her cousins. I remember how bright and cheerful Rose was at every family gathering. I really wanted to get to know her but back then my world pretty much revolved around 'the boy.' Fast forward quite a few years... Bobby and I have married, had our beautiful girls and settled  our oldest, AnnaRose into school life at Hillcrest
Read more

50 Years

Image
I love celebrating anniversaries, wedding ones in particular. There is just something about honoring the moment two people chose to join together for this lifetime and face whatever is to come there way. Marriage is more than a piece of paper, more than a legal commitment, it is a covenant made before God to be one and to make it last... every year you can look back and say 'we made another year!' is reason to celebrate. Looking back at the highs and lows, the times you were totally on the same page and those times you were just 'broken together.' It's a great day to look forward and dream about what might still be coming your way. Yesterday we celebrated 50 years of marriage with Mom and Dad and will do so again in 7 weeks with the family in Banff but I couldn't let the actual day slip by without honouring the two who have showed me what marriage really looks like. They aren't perfect and Dad would get mad at me if I suggested otherwise but they have al
Read more