“Let us enter His gates with thanksgiving.” Psalm 100:4
Dear Father,
Thanksgiving Day is only a couple of weeks away and somewhere in the recesses of my mind the scene and scent of paste and crayons emerge. Brown paper-sack turkeys plastered to construction paper take me back to third grade. Pilgrims with black buckle hats and pressed maple leaves on wax paper taught my childish heart that giving thanks was something we ought always to do. Why was it so easy back then? It was easy to give thanks knowing that school would be out for a few days. Easy because Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade always heralded in the holiday season. Easy because we were headed to Granny’s house and a gaggle of cousins would meet me there and the giggles would be nonstop. It was easy because I was a child. But I have grown up and grown up problems and issues stuff me more than the stuffing in the holiday turkey. You told us to give thanks all the time. Thanks whether we are young or old, fine or ill. Thanks when we are working or unemployed. Thanks when there are no grandmas left to go to and cousins are far removed. Thanks in all things. That little word ‘all’ is sometimes a big thing. So how do we do that? It has to be by faith, obedience and a realization of who you are. If we focus on you then praise and thanks come bubbling out. It cannot be contained. I imagine some seventeenth century folk could have murmured and complained about their hard living conditions in this new land. They could have wished and wanted to be with relatives left back in the old country. They could have lamented forever over their loved ones who succumbed to illnesses in this strange place. But they thanked you and did it often. Let me continue this rich heritage as I breathe thanksgivings to you throughout all my days; not just one time of the year. You have told me to enter your gates with thanksgiving and praise on my lips. My heart skips, twirls and pirouettes within your court in sheer joy that nothing, no problem, no separation, no death, nothing in this whole wide world can separate me from my everlasting Father. Thanks be to God who always loves me!
Love,
Penny
