Wednesday Wonder

There is a nip in the air, the leaves are changing colour, some are already on the ground. Fall is here!

And with fall comes Thanksgiving. Our hearts and minds turn to being grateful, and to sitting down to a plate full of turkey and all the fixings.

Sometimes I wonder if we remember the thankful, grateful part and just skip to the turkey. Often that seems to be the focus. There is also the gathering of family together. Or, to the gathering of friends and your chosen family. These gatherings hopefully remind us to be grateful, as we have someone to share the feast with us when many do not.

We shared a feast together this past Sunday as we gathered at the table for communion. While we don’t sit down around the table, although I have done that in much smaller churches, it is still a feast for the family. What family? The family of God, of which we are all a part. And I will point out, there is no kids’ table at the feast. We have room for all at the one table. I mention this because at a certain point I resented having to sit at the kids’ table growing up. I wanted adult conversation.

What Thanksgiving and its feasts and gatherings are about is gratitude. Many of you will remember that I like to call it Thanks Living instead of Giving. In the living of our thanks, the giving will happen. In the living our gratitude should show. In the showing of our gratitude, others can see that we, as God’s family, have life in abundance, a life we want to share.

I was inspired again this week by something I found in my preparation for the weekly Bible study groups. Ernest D. Martin writes in his commentary on Colossians: “Walk comes before talk, but talk needs to follow, and the two must give the same message.” How often do we say something similar about walking the walk and talking the talk? It would seem that it has been said by people like Paul since the beginning of the Christian church. In fact, we know Jesus said it too.

Everything we have is a gift from God. We should be thanking God for all of it. How do we do that? Thanksgiving gives us a very clear reminder to do so. The name does tell us what we need to do. But, Thanksgiving often is seen as one day, or maybe one weekend of the year. If we think of Thanks Living instead, then it reminds us it should happen every day. Definitely something we can all work at. I know that remembering to live with gratitude can be hard some days. It just may not be a day I can find a reason to say thanks. It needs to be intentional.

What does your Thanksgiving look like? For me, this time of year is a nudge to make an extra effort to show my gratitude. This year, it will mean a little extra donation (I think of it as a Thank Offering) to Kingsview in gratitude for all the support and encouragement I have received the past couple of years. I could not have been as thankful each day without you. Making sure that Kingsview continues to be here for others who need support and encouragement is part of my thanks living now as well. I truly know how important a community like this can be. But it isn’t just my donation that will show my gratitude to God. I give more of myself this time of year by spending my time to assist others. I give more of my prayer life over to this as well. And I look for opportunities to share that God has provided greatly for me so the circle of gratitude grows.

Yes, I am more intentional at this time of year with my gratitude. It helps that we put special envelopes around the church as a reminder, and the word thanks seems to be everywhere. But how do I remember to live that gratitude every other day of the year? Well, that is different for all of us. Some days we remember and some days we don’t. Some days we feel grateful and other days we struggle with that.

What will your Thanks Living look like for the next year? I have intentionally put a notebook on my kitchen table to write my gratitude in each morning. Taking a few moments to note even one thing I am grateful for often leads to me seeing more blessings the rest of the day.

Let me finish by saying how thankful I am for each and everyone one of you. Together we create much that can offer others to see blessings in their lives and build gratitude in the world around us. And a grateful world, just might be a world we can, in turn, be grateful for each day.