11-25-19<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am usually reminded of the same things each Thanksgiving. That is human nature, or perhaps an infertile imagination. But I don\u2019t mean the Pilgrims and Indians, no. I do mean intentional reflection on God\u2019s grace-filled blessings on me and mine, yes. On us all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I have also noticed (some would say that I am obsessed, to which I plead guilty) that \u201cThank you\u201d and \u201cThanks\u201d are still breathing in our conversations; however, \u201cYou\u2019re welcome\u201d has been displaced, or deleted. On television interviews, in phone calls, in chats around town. \u201cThank you\u201d is sometimes responded to by silence \u2013 that is, not at all. Or \u201cThank YOU,\u201d or \u201cNo problem,\u201d or \u201cYou bet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Watch and listen; you\u2019ll see. If you wind up thanking me, I will say, \u201cYou\u2019re welcome,\u201d I promise. But this development seems to be more than a conversational tic. I believe it manifests a basic unraveling of courtesy in our culture, even the loss of appreciation and thankfulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also reflect on the validity of turning around the order, if not the meanings, of \u201cThanks\u201d and \u201cYou\u2019re Welcome\u201d at this time of year. Yes, we thank God for His blessings. But can it be valid to think that, in the Pilgrims\u2019 case for instance, when they praised God, dedicated their land to Him, and operated the colony by His precepts as a way of thanking and honoring the Lord\u2026 that His blessings and bountiful harvests were God saying, \u201cYou\u2019re welcome\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe loved us, in that while we were yet sinners, He sent His Son to die for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As unlikely as it would seem to be \u2013 and remembering that Grace is unmerited favor \u2013 perhaps God thanks us preemptively for our humble acts of praise and gratitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Circular reasoning can remind us of the miracle of God\u2019s love, and of His wondrous ways. Those wondrous ways include uncountable things we do not understand. And we should not try to, because \u201csuch are the ways of the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I recently came across the news about Madison Shyanne Keaton, a member of the large and talented Keaton and Collingsworth families. Below is a link to a family gathering, around the piano in the their sun room, exactly one year ago, at Thanksgiving.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shy, a beautiful 24-year-old, speaks very briefly about her life \u2013 running away from home at 15; drugs and sex; losing her baby and fiancee. She was also in and out and in and out of rehab. With the prayers and help of her friends and family, as she says in the moving video link below, she ought to have died, but did not. Straight and clean, her face beams with joy and faith. As everyone sings \u201cBigger Than All My Mountains,\u201d she drops to her knees in\u2026 thanksgiving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only a few weeks ago, Shy was killed in an accident, when a car ignored signals at an intersection and hit hers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How can we \u201cThank\u201d? Where is the \u201cYou\u2019re welcome\u201d? Did God have a purpose? \u2013 I always answer quickly to such questions at such times, \u201cno, the devil had a purpose.\u201d Our responses to these horrors in life \u2013 yes, even an aspect of our thanks and praise \u2013 is to remember the verse that \u201call things work for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.\u201d NOT \u201call things are<\/em> good,\u201d but \u201call things work<\/em> for good\u201d\u2026 and that is our job: to turn things around on the devil, and toward the glory of God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not only the random moments in life when the ways of God are mysteries. Much about Him is mysterious \u2013 although He surely has shared a lot in scripture! \u2013 but we would be, not as angels, but as God Himself if we understood everything. So we should not try. Rather for us, then, the living, to\u2026 have faith. That\u2019s what faith is \u2013 the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201csacrifice of praise\u201d is something He desires, that we acknowledge His goodness even when we don\u2019t feel it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And maybe the essence of Thanksgiving is to thank Him when sometimes it is tough to summon gratitude. It is easy, after all, to say \u201cthanks\u201d when everything is rosy. But you mean <\/em>\u201cThank you\u201d when you have to dig deep in order to acknowledge His love and His ways. And that\u2019s when the Master of our souls gently says, \u201cYou are welcome, my child.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if we don\u2019t quite understand, we have a greater gift, God\u2019s cycle of gratitude. Thanks for things seen and unseen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/p>\n\n\n\n