Thanksgiving

It’s the week of Thanksgiving, one of my favorite times of year.

I love the food, traditions, moments of reflection, colors, decor. It’s a wonderful blend of family and friends coming together to celebrate and remember.

I always try to have an activity or craft for the kids that focuses on what they are thankful for. It’s true that once you start listing things, it’s difficult to find a stopping point! We have so many blessings, big and small, that should be remembered and rejoiced in.

For kids especially, these “I’m thankful for…” lists usually amount to their favorites. Favorite food, animals, things. It becomes a “My Favorites” list, which isn’t a bad thing; you can be thankful for your favorite things. But I was thinking, are we ever thankful for things that aren’t in that favorites list?

It’s an easy practice to think about what we love, what was fun, what went well and be thankful. But have you ever looked over the year and reflected on how the hard, difficult times and decisions changed you? I’m not saying you have to be thankful for the actual hard things themselves: illness, pain, loss, strain, etc. It might be difficult or impossible to truthfully say we are thankful for those things in our lives and situations. But maybe while walking through a hardship, you learned something about God, you found yourself focused on a certain attribute of his you’d overlooked, you memorized a Psalm that took on new meaning or significance. These are the things we can be thankful for, even after a difficult year {or two!}.

When I look back on 2021, I see a lot that frustrated me and discouraged me but I also have some wonderful memories with my family, I saw God provide financially, I grew deeper in some friendships, and learned more about empathy with others. I came to the end of my strength while dealing with constant pain and was reminded I have nothing under control, but God does.

So as you enter Thanksgiving and hopefully have time to reflect on 2021, don’t be afraid to give more than surface thanks {food, shelter, friends, etc.}. Think and pray about how God has used the good and discouraging of this year to draw you closer to himself.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

With a Thankful Heart

It’s the week of Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays.

I try to keep a list of gratitude all year but for this week, what I’m thankful for comes to the front of my mind. It’s a good practice and habit to recite to others and ourselves what God has done for us. But it’s also important for us to remember and give thanks for Who God is.

With everything going on in the world in 2020, I’ve felt a special pull to rejoice in Who God is and the confidence I can have — even in times of chaos — because of Him. As we go into Thursday and through the end of the year, take time to praise and thank God for Who He is and what He has promised. Here are a few prompts to get you started:

God is…

Compassionate

Faithful

Just

Patient

Everlasting

Worthy

Holy…

God is also the giver of good gifts and because of that, we can praise Him for all the blessings we experience…

Family

Home

Music

Friends

Ability to worship

Ability to pray

Health…

Let’s leave 2020 with a grateful heart and a long list of what we are thankful for.

Photo by Wisconsin Pictures on Unsplash

Rejoice in Others

Do you have a heard time hearing praise given to someone else?

It’s not something we readily admit because it sounds {and is} selfish. But still there is a part of us that maybe bristles a little when one friend talks about the virtues of another. “I do those same things,” we think, “and no one has told me how great I did. No one noticed when I went out of my way to serve.” And then we cringe at how incredibly selfish we are.

Our society is built on people who promote themselves. In this election year, we’ve had ample opportunity to see people talk about themselves, how they have the answers, how they are the best option. We also see this in celebrities, YouTube stars, athletes. If you want to get noticed, you have to sing your own praises.

But as Christians, there’s something that stops us {or it should} from blowing our own horn about how we serve others. Still, it doesn’t take away from that desire to be recognized. We might be tempted to think certain things aren’t worth doing if no one will notice it.

There’s a verse that always convicts me when I start having this mentality.

“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Galatians 1:10

The driving force behind everything we do should not be to gain recognition or praise but to serve God. Are we doing certain things because of the comments we receive from people? Are we making certain decisions because we want the world to think well of us?

Pride is at the root of so many sins and it’s not something easily uprooted from our lives. We need to be vigilant, we need to be honest, and we need to have an attitude of repentance when we fail.

The family of God is so full of a variety of people with different talents and desires and abilities. We don’t need to compete for ways to serve God; we can find what he has gifted us in and pursue it for his glory. When people are recognized for a service well done, we need to come alongside them with appreciation for how they contribute to the ministry. It might be something we can’t do, something we actually have no desire to do. And yet, they did. And God used them.

We need to encourage each other. We need to grow in Christ together. We need to serve together. And God will use us in ways we couldn’t manage on our own.

Photo by John Mark Smith on Unsplash.

Holiday Expectations

This week is Thanksgiving and then we rush headlong into the busy season: Christmas.

Everyone knows holidays can be crazy. Extra people, lots of food meaning lots of planning and preparation, decorating, special events, concerts, recitals, parties. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t have a hundred things going on between now and December 31. And even though we love family and doing special things and making the season memorable for our kids, it’s hard to not become a little overwhelmed.

As my kids get older, I feel more pressure to do things that they’ll remember. If they loved something we ate or did last year, we have to do it this year and the next and the next…. Traditions are important, right? As moms, it’s easy to believe tradition making is all down to us. We have to make every moment of the holidays special, no matter what it requires or how tired it makes us.

The thing is, no one can do everything, as I was recently reminded by a friend. We can pin all the ideas, buy all the trendy stuff, stay up all hours but we’re only human. If we’re too drowsy to enjoy the fun, too irritated to be joyful, too busy to sit and eat, what is the point of it all? It’s not bad to want to make the holidays memorable and keep traditions going, but if we’re so focused on doing all the things that we don’t enjoy them and our joy is actually being replaced with anger and complaining, it’s not worth it.

So how do you stop a grumbling spirit from ruining the holidays? Be honest about why you’re doing things. Is it out of true joy or a feeling of obligation? Are you afraid the holiday will be terrible unless you do XYZ? Are you putting too much on yourself in this season?

Let me give you a silly example. When I was growing up, Thanksgiving meant pulling out the china and making place cards. I loved the food but as a little girl who aspired to be a princess, I loved the beauty and specialness of a well set table. I still love making holiday meals really special by using china, real silverware and cloth napkins, and decorating the table with place cards and candles. Even after having children, I’ve pulled the china out of the cabinet for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. But this year for Thanksgiving, I bought paper plates and napkins at Hobby Lobby. We’re hosting my parents and some of Tommy’s family and the number of people coming just made real dishes and napkins not realistic. I knew I would love the look of the table set with fine china but I would also be standing at the sink washing dishes long after the meal was over. And probably grumbling to myself that everyone else was off playing games and watching football.

Maybe this would never bother you but I half jokingly sobbed to Tommy that my standards were slipping when I told him we would be using paper this Thanksgiving. Maybe for you it’s not preparing a whole turkey or buying pies from Costco instead of homemade. Maybe it’s asking for help with the meal or changing a tradition slightly. Things like illness, a new baby, changes in the family, or moving are events we sometimes experience around holidays that make traditions difficult or impossible. Give yourself grace and do what you can with a joyful spirit, not expecting perfection.

Photo by Sweta Meininger on Unsplash

Cultivating Gratitude

It’s that season of Thanksgiving.

I love Thanksgiving. The food, the football, Fall, a chance to reflect on the year. It’s easy to think our thanks is relegated to this one day. But really we should be grateful all year. I’ve found being thankful is something that is often the first to depart in the midst of life. We’re busy, stressed, frustrations happen, disappointments. The car breaks down, the kids get sick on vacation, we don’t get a promotion, a friend gets difficult news. All the perfect plans we have made and counted on are suddenly ashes. And our attitudes become the first casualties.

I hadn’t really noticed how much work gratitude takes until I became a mom. Once my kids were old enough to voice an opinion, it quickly became apparent it didn’t take much to ruin their day. A toy goes missing, a playdate is cancelled, they aren’t allowed to just eat chicken nuggets and fries. Then they start throwing around the words, “never” and “always” and it sounds like they have the worst life ever.

Suddenly, any fun they were having is gone. All joy is taken from their faces as they focus on one thing: what they don’t have. It used to frustrate me until I applied the admonitions I gave to my children to myself. We can choose to be happy, even in the midst of disappointment. We can choose to be grateful in what we have, even while we mourn something that was lost. It’s all about choosing where our focus will be and dwelling on gratitude not complaining.

We don’t like to think of ourselves as ungrateful because we usually don’t like to be around complainers {am I alone in this?!} And when we aren’t thankful for what we have, it tends to manifest itself in complaining. Have you ever considered that adults have the same emotions as children? The difference is that we’ve learned we can’t physically display it in tantrums — maybe I should say most adults have learned this. When something disappoints us, we probably don’t sit on the floor screaming that life isn’t fair but we might tell our friends all our woes, state nothing good happens to us, everything is against us, etc. In those moments, we are complainers, seeing what we don’t have instead of having a grateful heart.

November is a wonderful time to form a habit of cultivating gratitude. We are reminded to, '“Give Thanks” through home decor, plates, pillows, and garlands. And while kids might already be writing Christmas wish lists, it’s the perfect opportunity to talk with them about being thankful for what they already have before they go wanting more.

On my next post, I’m going to give a few suggestions for cultivating gratitude in yourself and your kids this November. They aren’t difficult or time consuming. Just gentle reminders that choosing thankfulness makes all the difference.

Photo by Freshh Connection on Unsplash