Daily Devotional – 11/23/11 “You have something to be thankful for!”

As the holiday fast approaches, I am sure there are a lot of people asking the question, “What do I have to be thankful for?”  Your spirit is low because it’s the first holiday without your mom or dad or you don’t have the money readily available to cook dinner for your family.  You may even be without a job and living in someone else’s house and you just can’t seem to get your head above water.  But I am here to tell you that even though you are going through, there is a blessing in your storm.

I know that it’s easy for me to tell you that the death of your loved one will get easy because I haven’t dealt with it but I believe in God’s word in 2^nd Corinthians 4:17 that say “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!”  Yea, not having momma around to cook her turkey and dressing this Thanksgiving is hard for some, but momma wouldn’t come back here if given the chance.  Because, see, all of her suffering, pain, heartache and circumstances came to an end the moment the angel kissed her to sleep.  I’m sure that she has instilled in you God’s word and she has prepared you for a time such as this because momma knew that in order for her to live again that she had to die.  For some the death was unexpected and they are still questioning God’s choice but who are we to question him when his word clearly states “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).  When I look at granddaddy’s face and I see the suffering he has endured by being bedridden for the last few years, I sometimes wonder why God hasn’t ended his suffering, but I then realize that it’s not up to me. Maybe God still has some work for him to do from the bed that he lays in from day-to-day.  Who am I to speed up or slow down the day he chooses to pluck his flowers?  I know that it’s hard right now, but you have memories to share and recipes to cook this holiday season, so you still have something to be thankful for.

You may be drowning in a sea of bills and it seems like every time you pull yourself up that you get sucked back down, but I am here to tell you to just hold on.  You might not have the extra money you were hoping to buy that big turkey for dinner but you got your health, be thankful.  You might not have the extra money to get that honey baked ham that you wanted but you still got an appetite, be thankful.  You probably won’t make all the desserts that you normally do but all of your kids are home and healthy, be thankful.  Most of the time we have everything we need right in front of us, but we miss it looking for something else.  You know that every holiday you waste more food because folk now days don’t do leftovers but you still want to cook an overabundance of food to throw away.  You should be thanking God for giving you the sense this time to save instead of throwing away.  Nobody will think any less of you because you have 2 fewer cakes than you did last year.  All you have to do is try out a new recipe and they’ll never notice and for the ones that do, tell them to cook one and bring it.  Stop trying to act like folk will think any less of you because your funds are low because I’m sure theirs are too but they are just too proud to say.  Who cares what folk think of you, who are they?  If they had it all together then they should have hosted Thanksgiving at their house this year instead of coming to yours with their to-go plates already in a bag.  Everybody is going through some things and just because you are too, it doesn’t mean you have to look like it.  You have food on the table when some families go without all year-long, so you have something to be thankful for.

We have gotten away from being thankful during these holidays.  Now we rush through Thanksgiving in order to get to Black Friday when, if truth be told, you don’t have the money to spend any way.  We take the money for bills to go stand out in the cold at 2AM to catch a TV on sale when the store only ordered 10 to begin with.  We are pushing and shoving in a crowd of 100 people to get the best deals on stuff that we already have anyway.  We are too busy trying to get these ungrateful children everything they’ve asked for through the year and then come the Monday after Black Friday, you won’t even have gas money.  Chile, you need to wake up.  Christmas isn’t about the gifts under the tree, the tree nor the decorations.  We need to get back to the real meaning.  Start a new tradition with your family this year by staying up to watch movies, play some games, bake cookies and drink hot chocolate.  Buy a gift for a needy child or adult and give to the food bank whose shelves are empty.  Teach the children the real meaning of the holiday.  I can remember waking up on Christmas morning at grandma’s house to the smell of the turkey and ham that she cooked all night and breakfast on the stove.  She’d have the sweet potato pies cooling and her cakes already frosted, her cornbread would be in the oven for the dressing and the potato salad already in the refrigerator.  We would each have a shoe box with our name on it and inside it’ll have candy and fresh fruit that granddaddy bought from the market some days before.  The house would be filled with folk but it never seemed crowded because it was filled with love.  It wasn’t about how much was spent on the gifts and if somebody got more than me but it was about the real meaning of the season.  We’d usually go to early morning service at church so that we understood what Christmas was about before any gifts were opened. See, then we appreciated what we received and the food we ate; we had reasons to be thankful.

So, even when you don’t think you have a reason to be thankful, look around.  Go down to the Mid-South Food Bank and look at the empty shelves that have with no food and then go home and look in your refrigerator – you have something to be thankful for.  Go down to St. Jude and look at the children who are spending their holidays there, then go home and look upon the faces of your healthy kids – you have something to be thankful for.  Ride down the street in your car and look at the folks begging for change or those sleeping on the streets and then pull into your driveway, walk into your warm house, and flip a switch for power that comes on – you have something to be thankful for.  Go to the nursing homes and see some of the people who have no one to visit them but you’re complaining about your family – you have something to be thankful for.  Be thankful for what you have no matter how small or how big it is.  Somebody is praying to be in the shoes you’re in, to have the food you eat, the car you drive, the house you stay in and the family that you take for granted.  Don’t be too busy overlooking the blessings you already have wishing for those that you don’t because you might not be able to handle the storm it’ll take to get them.  Be thankful!