Loading...Dear Friends in Christ,
Happy Thanksgiving!! I hope you have a wonderful, joyous, and bountiful Thanksgiving. The original Thanksgiving was an act of being thankful for a good harvest. That still is a good reason to be thankful, but very few of us have little more than a garden to give thanks for. It is still good to be thankful for this little harvest. So what do you have to be thankful for if you didn't plant a garden? I am thankful for a lot of things. Even though I have diabetes, my knees, shoulder and heel all hurt, and I just can't do the things I used to, I am a very blessed person, and I thank God for that every day.
Of course, the definition of Thanksgiving is expressing our thanks, especially to God. I think there are two special ways we can be thankful to God. One is to go to church and worship God in thansgiving for the many blessings he has given to us. You may not think you are necessarily blessed, but it you sit down and think about it, you will find a multiitude of blessing. When I was a kid, a popular song was "Counting Your Blessings." The words were something like, "When I'm worried, and I can't sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep, and I fall asleep counting my blessings..."
None of us are trouble free. We worry about our kids, about the mortgage, about terrorists, about our jobs, about how worse things seem to be that they were, on and on and on. When I get overwhelmed with my troubles, I end up praying the serenity prayer, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." And those things that are beyond my control I turn over to God. One of the thinkgs I am thankful for is the prayer box that Allen designed and presented to Stras Memorial where we can write down on paper our troubles, put them in the prayer box and turn them over to God. Writing them down is therapeutic. Turning them over to God is a blessing.
Giving thanks to God should be a central part of our worship. That is part of why we go to church. The Eucharist is a service of thansksgiving. Of course we don't have to go to church to be thankful, but it is a very comforting way to show God how thankful we are. Some people think they don't have to go to church to worship God. That is true but do they? Do they read scripture, read a commentary on the scripture, do they pray for themselves and others? Or do they sleep in, read the funny papers or watch TV?
Another way of being thankful to God for His blessings is to be His hands and feet and heart. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our body and all our soul," and the second greatest is to "Love your neighbors as we love ourselves." Jesus also said, "I cames not to be served, but to serve." What better way to show your thankfulness to God than by helping those who are not as blessed as you are. There are many ways we can show our thankfulness in the Thanksgiving and Christmas season, such as contributing and volunteering at the Union Mission, Center for Christian Action, A Little Child Shall Lead Them Food Bank, local hospitals and nursing homes. It is in giving that we receive and in loving that we are loved.
My prayer for all of us that we have an abundance of blessings and that we show God how thankful we are by worshipping Him and by serving those who are in need. Enjoy turkey and all the trimmings, take care and God Bless.
In Christ's Love,
Father Russ
