Giving Thanks
Last evening Julie and had a big group of friends over to celebrate the commercially-ignored season of thanksgiving. Julie helped me decorate and try to capture the colors, smells and sounds of the season. Here’s the menu: 17 lb. turkey, dressing, gravy, baked macaroni and cheese, twice baked yams, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, cranberry sauce, creamed corn, rolls, garlic mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, Amish friendship bread, and pumpkin-chocolate chip bread pudding. Jeffrey brought a bottle Fonseca Tawny Port, and beside we had tea, soda, beer, wine, and whiskey. I was pretty adamant that we make a cornucopia. Adamant enough that I told everyone who was coming that we would have a cornucopia on the table before I had any idea where it would come from. I figure that’s the best way to get things done: Make ridiculous promises, and your pride motivates you to keep them. Ha.
The cornucopia really was great. (The picture above was our centerpiece) The fact is that Julie and I and everyone we know have been blessed abundantly. I have about as perfect a job for this season of my life as I could imagine. Julie has been extremely successful at work, and she is excellent at her job, which she loves. We have absolutely wonderful, sacrificial families who bend over backwards to assist us in any way they can. Julie’s parents were here half the day yesterday helping us clean. Tom was in the backyard with me raking leaves, while Cheryl was inside vacuuming and dusting the whole house and teaching us how to cook a turkey. This, all for a party they weren’t even coming to. We have a place to live for a very good price, and which provides us with sundry opportunities to learn how to fix things. So the cornucopia was important to me because we have been blessed with plenty. It’s such a fantastic image. And of course my wonderful bride pulled through and found the basket for me. She always pulls through.
I will be 25 in three days. One quarter of a century old. My life has been characterized by God’s riches. I was raised in the church, hearing the Word preached regularly both from the church, and in my family. While we were never affluent, we never lacked either. The Lord was incredibly faithful in His generous provision, and when things were tight he provided my mother with an uncanny ability to make money last. I have never lacked any good thing. I have always had every need met, and a great deal of my desires as well. I can certainly claim, with the rest of America, immensly more wealth than much of the world. I hope that, in my inentions to develop discipline, part of that will include developing a general spirit of thankfulness.
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