The month of horror movies is over and it's November, when we give thanks. Not yet time for the angels to sing, but time to gather for another year of reckoning over turkey and gravy. For what are you thankful?
This morning, even before rising from bed, gratitude for what entered your sleepy mind first? The sounds of your children? The smell of coffee? That you have lunch planned with a friend? Or mom is doing better? Or you are? For me, daily, it is my husband's arm around me, a last warm embrace before I begin to carefully navigate my unreliable morning back.
Some, like me, may be thankful that the pain is not today as it was yesterday, when a mere sneeze brought a yelp. Instead, you may have a new challenge to inspire you. Or be grateful for a friend who did something brave. Or that Election Day is over. You may feel appreciated. That's worth a prayer of thanksgiving. At the day's close, you might sit outside by the fire pit, as we have been doing, watching the sparks fly and the stars come out, the nights earlier just now. So many things to be thankful for.
But what if you have to dig within to give thanks? What if you're remembering someone lost to you and have only their blessed brief or not-so-brief life to be thankful for? Worse, what if they just left you, even yesterday or so it seems? What if the time to be the one you need to be now has not yet passed and you fear it never will and also fear you might forget, and which is worse? Or what if you're just plain lonely, or sick, and have to dig deeper?
Sometimes blessings do seem buried, hidden. Sometimes it is easy to give thanks but sometimes, maybe more often than not, we have to find a way through pain or grief or worry or fear. We have to scale boulders so high they block our way. I can't imagine how we do this except through the grace of God. How else do we survive our tragedies and traumas and losses and illnesses and things that, truly, have no upside?
Together, of course. We are never alone. Lonely, yes, people are. But not alone. We have friends. We have family. We seek help. We have those who share our faith. We have God.
The most fearful things--not the horror movies we watched over Halloween--but mental, emotional and even physical sufferings, never belong to us alone. There are times I have wanted more than spiritual blessings. When an illness strikes, I have prayed for healing, not acceptance. Or "Dear God, make this not be true." But God Himself has transformed the prayer into something else. I have not yet been unable to accept life, and death, as it is. And you too, is it not so?
We don't give thanks for losses, or suffering, or meanness. Sometimes we can't give thanks for anything. But God takes even just a thought, or tear, takes it all. God takes our lives and inchoate prayers and makes something of them, something to which He responds giving us strength and grace, endurance and love. We are children who are known and treasured and beyond all understanding given not what we ask for (perhaps) but what we need. I don't understand this. But of all that is difficult to accept, this is not.
This must be a prayer. AMEN
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