May The Lord Make Us Truly Thankful
It’s that time of year again, when we get together and eat turkey with our family. It kind of makes you wonder what this holiday is all about because when I think of Thanksgiving, I think of traveling to my Mamaw and Papaw’s house for lunch, hop back in the car to travel to my Grandma’s house for dinner and then head to the movies with my four million cousins. Those days are sadly gone but even when they were here we were more focused on getting places on time and making sure the parents didn’t forget that going to the movies is a tradition and everyone must attend than it was about being thankful.
I have to admit that when I get a new Pottery Barn catalog, especially a holiday one…I don’t feel so thankful. Instead I feel envious of those who can afford to buy the Thanksgiving collection complete with Mayflower Treat Holders and who have children to dress up like Pilgrims and Indi…Native Americans. At least that is how I use to feel. This year things have changed for me because I saw what it actually means to be in “need”.
I was blessed to get to go to Kisumu, Kenya this summer on a mission trip. I had never been out of the country before and I decided if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right. I was going to go as far away as I could. Once we arrived in Africa, I noticed quickly that I wasn’t in America anymore. I had never NOT BEEN in America before (except for the two days we had spent in London-but that was close enough to America). There wasn’t a Starbucks to be found. We weren’t just in Africa, we were in the slums of Africa. All the sudden I had jumped right into the pages of National Geographic except these people were real with names and stories.
I always knew, I guess, but for the first time I felt overwhelmed with blessings. I felt ashamed of how much I have and how little I appreciate it. As we walked though the neighborhood, I watched my perspective change. I became very patriotic. My room-mate on this trip and I at night when we were desperately missing anything that resembled American food, would sing Patriotic songs until we would fall asleep under our mosquito tents. Somehow that spiraled out of control to where we wrote songs constantly and sang them to the tune of America, the Beautiful and sung them with an African accent. Most of my songs were titled, Starbucks. Riveting tunes, really.
I was filling my shoebox for Operation Christmas Child up to the top last night, thinking of the trash covered streets, the little boys wearing girl’s clothes because that is all they had, the wild animals walking around eating trash from the slum streets, the butchery that had no refrigeration and was in a building no larger than a refrigerator box. I was wondering if the little giggly girls who followed me through the slums and would copy all my well performed dance moves were going to get a Christmas gift…or even a decent meal. I was thinking about the lady we met who was pregnant and was worried for her unborn baby not to mention her sister that had been missing for six years, I was thinking about all the street boys who sniffed glue to keep themselves warm and to curb their appetite.
The first Winter on the Plymouth Colony, the Pilgrims were truly in need. Many of them grew sick and died of pneumonia, malnutrition, hypothermia or a mixture of these. The Pilgrims truly were thankful for their Harvest the next year because they understood what it was like to go without. Most of us have never had a Thanksgiving that wasn’t filled with food, laughter and the joy being with loved ones. For that we should be truly thankful and for those who are not as blessed as we are, we need to share our many blessings.
My Life With Freckles 