My Favorite Thanksgiving

Dad and my nephew Craig, Thanksgiving, 2007
Grateful Lives
In November of 2007, Rich and I were newlyweds of not quite three months. We’d been evacuated from our beloved home a month earlier due to a massive wildfire. Our home, and our entire neighborhood, had been spared, thanks to God’s grace and some hard, hard work on the part of firefighters.  But now we’d returned, the soot had been swept out, precious photos had reclaimed their places on our walls, and it was Thanksgiving Day. Our parents, our siblings, and some of our children gathered in our home to give thanks. Had our house burned, we’d have given thanks–but in a different place.
By Thanksgiving of 2008, my mother had been called home. When we sat down to the feast that November, one treasured face was  missing from the gathered family. And we gave thanks.
Rich has dealt with some health challenges this year. And we give thanks.
God has blessed us incredibly. I hope that with some reflection, no matter what hardships you face, you can see His blessings on you, too.
I intend to focus on all for which I can give thanks–and that’s everything. I trust my God’s sovereignity: even  apparent hardships will be worked for good. Please join me.
1 Come, let us sing to the Lord!

Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come to Him with thanksgiving.
Let us sing psalms of praise to Him.
3 For the Lord is a great God,
a great King above all gods.
4 He holds in His hands the depths of the earth
and the mightiest mountains.
5 The sea belongs to Him, for He made it.
His hands formed the dry land, too.
6 Come, let us worship and bow down.
Let us kneel before the Lord our maker,
7 for He is our God.
We are the people He watches over,
the flock under His care.
If only you would listen to his voice today!

Psalm 95: 1-7 (NLT)