Thanksgiving… now I wasn’t going to post on this in order to avoid a cliché, but this was before I got some sense knocked in to me.
Leading up to Thanksgiving Day, I saw it as the opportunity to finally breathe, to be able to relax and not worry whatsoever about school or anything else. It was a destination (to allude back to a previous post), just something to look forward to, some goal to reach. In a sense it was my light at the end of the tunnel. Consequently, I felt numb to all the thoughts or feelings you should feel on thanksgiving. I saw peoples’ statuses or posts about Thanksgiving, asking what are you thankful for? I quickly moved on, not wanting to think of that, not wanting to pause just one second to get out of my little shell and think of the broader picture. Selfishness… that’s what it was. Sadly, and to my own disappointment and guilt, this concept did not come until the following events.
As our family was plotting our Black Friday plan, seeing what strategy would be best to save the most money, my parents got a phone call. Their friend had died, and their friend’s husband was beside himself. Then, it hit me… Here I was sitting there doing the greediest thing I could be doing, serving my desires, when someone had lost her life leaving her husband with nothing, or at least very little, to be thankful for on the very day that we should be thankful. It did make me happy to see that my parents, as well as a number of their friends, would drop everything they were doing to be with a friend in need. That’s the kind of friend I want to be and the kind of friends I would like to think I have. Anyway, that moment with the phone call changed my perspective of the day.
I no longer saw it solely as a breath of fresh air; I was suddenly thankful for the mere ability to breathe, the ability to laugh, to touch, to feel, to move, the ability to LIVE. I was thankful the blessings God has placed in my life: family, friends, a job, shelter, mobility, even the ability to openly and freely live out my faith and my life free from sin. I was thankful for the ability to rejoice in my successes as well as my sufferings (this is something I’m struggling with, hence the word “ability”…work in progress).
This broke me, not completely, but it did break me. It was like one of those huge white gobstoppers, I have built a shell of neglect and avoidance the past few weeks towards life and faith. The white covering of the gobstopper represents this shell, so in this moment it was like a layer or two of the gobstopper had been sucked away revealing the colors underneath, but not the soft core. So I cried and I prayed for Linda (that’s her name, the woman who died) for her death but also her life, that her life would be remembered and celebrated rather than her death be filled with sorrow. I prayed and cried for Terry (her husband) that God would surround him with the love of his friends and that he would recognize the love, and I thanked God for this. I prayed and cried for my soul, for God to rid me of the guilt and greed in my heart… then I found peace in Thanksgiving and in my heart.
I still participated in Black Friday but I like to think it was out of tradition rather than greed. I didn’t push anyone to the side, though they pushed me, we chose to forego waiting in line at target for hours but we still got what was on our list a couple hours after it opened… it was more relaxed after that. Those are my thoughts. Here comes the cliché… I hope you took the time to be thankful this thanksgiving…if not, you can be thankful every day of your life. Wow, this feels like it’s a novel length post… sorry, “have a good and blessed day” (to quote the bus driver of the only Valley Metro bus I’ve been on, I like that she made a point to say this to all of her passengers even if they irritated her)… anyways yes have a good and blessed day :)
Peace and Love in Gratefulness
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