Thanksgiving Litany or Random Rambling Thoughts of Thanks

I’m thankful for elastic-waist pants, no matter what Stacy and Clinton (What Not to Wear) think. A fifteen pound turkey is roasting in the oven, and he will be joined by a plethora of side dishes. In these pants, I will be ready.

I’m thankful my salary covers health insurance for my family (though little else). I’m thankful my talented husband’s multiple jobs cover the rest, making it possible for us to live a comfortable life.

I’m thankful my son Curt baked two pumpkin pies at midnight, after I pointed out the oven would be turkey-filled and unavailable during daylight hours.

I’m thankful for Watsontown Christian Academy, my home away from home, location of my ministry and gainful employment. I’m thankful for my colleagues—sisters in Christ and a few interesting brothers—and my students. I’m thankful for our intersecting lives, what we give and receive from each other.

I’m thankful for creative students who turn a simple grammar assignment into an occasion to LOL and almost ROFL. Without his permission (or name), I offer a few sentences:

 

• The cat leaped gracefully through the air and into the closed door.
• Steve’s pet was frightened when he slowly donned the hog dot helmet.
• We’ve got to rid the world of loud annoying people and people who keep their cats outside the house on cold nights.

I’m thankful for more sisters and brothers at Watsontown Baptist Church, Home of Real Prayer Support. We may not be the best chorus singers, but boy can we pray.

I’m thankful for my writing friends and critique partners at West Branch Christian Writers and St. Davids Christian Writers Association. We support, encourage, and challenge each other. We catch each other’s errors before they’re out there for the reading public to see. We rejoice (sometimes with a teensy weensy bit of envy) at each other’s success. I’m thankful—and proud—that Sue has become a published author with a devotional coming in the Spring 2012 edition of The Secret Place.

I’m thankful for my home, flood zone location and all. It belongs to me, Gene, and Sovereign Bank. It’s spacious and (almost) warm, and I can paint the walls weird colors if I want. Only another former parsonage dweller could be this thankful. 

I’m thankful in spite of

 

• missing my far away family. My brothers live in Ohio, Michigan, and California, and my sister in New Jersey. I wish we all lived on the same street and could eat our holiday meals together and visit over coffee every day. My oldest son moved to Hollywood and makes movie trailers. My mom moved to Heaven decades ago.
  
• disappointments, failures, challenges, and daily drama—NOT the kind on television.

I’m thankful for God’s sense of humor. He took the offspring of a Jewish mother and a lapsed Jehovah’s Witness father, brought her to a Baptist church and faith in Jesus Christ, and eventually gave her the privilege of teaching high school students how to read and understand the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Truth IS stranger than fiction and a lot more fun.

I’m thankful to be reminded, as I was yesterday morning in a Louie Giglio DVD, that Jesus holds me together. For those of you who know me well and think I am falling apart, just know that I would be completely disintegrated by now without Jesus. I look back at the years since 1966, when Jesus brought me into God’s family, and recognize that Jesus held me together through everything. Giglio quoted Colossians 1; I’ve included a portion of that chapter below.

Christ Holds It All Together

 ^15-18We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

 ^18-20He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.

 ^21-23You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God's side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don't walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.  (From The Message translation of the Bible, courtesy of www.biblegateway.com)

I’m thankful you’ve read through all the rambling to the random end. I'm thankful for lots more, but I should check on the turkey. Please share what you’re thankful for. 

Happiest Thanksgiving.