I’ll admit, I was a little grumpy at first, approaching Thanksgiving.
After all, I slipped into the bait several years back of enjoying the holiday on my own; my bride has always been understanding, since I need time away from people to better be able to deal with people. Plus work often gets in the way of important things in life, like spending time with the horses, playing with the dogs, trapping and hunting. I also justified my solitude with the real-life reason that Thanksgiving was a popular day for trespassers on the farm I used to hunt, and I took my promise of stewardship seriously.
But we don’t live on that side of the river any more, and my equines and canines get attention every day. The new place I hunt is securely gated, thus foiling the attempts of most poachers, and besides, it just wouldn’t be the same enjoying a boxed lunch on my own anywhere but on the bridge at Henry’s Pass. Then again, I truly do love my extended family, and I don’t see them enough.
So I wrote off my plans for a day by myself, albeit with some reluctance. I’ll just have to be civilized for a while, and resist the urge to aim the Suburban at the rude drivers who invariably occupy the highway on the last Thursday in November.
But then again, I had to chide myself – after all, it’s a day to be thankful, and I can’t begin to count the number of reasons Missus and I are blessed beyond measure. It was almost exactly a month after water swept through our home that I was able to swing my warm, dry feet over the side of my own bed, onto a new, dry, warm floor, and start another day. On the last prior Sunday I awoke in that bed, my rest was
exhausted and fitful, and my feet landed in eight inches of water after a brief nap.
You don’t treasure such things until they are taken away.
It wasn’t long ago I saw a woman beside the road with a hand-lettered sign that
read, “Hungry and have nothing.” I hit a nearby store and went back with a little something for her, but she had disappeared. There have, thankfully, only been one or two times I could truly qualify as being hungry, and those were due to my own stubbornness and bad choices. Just to have a meal or two in the cabinet, a pot of coffee on demand and the ability to obtain more if we so desire is a blessing most of us take for granted.
I have a dear friend, a solid brother in Christ, whom I have never met. Simon Saha is a missionary in Bangladesh, and we talk nearly very day, and pray together often, via the wonders of social media.
Listening to the things he and his family commonly go through make me grateful to live in a country where I don’t have to be worried about being attacked for my faith (at least not yet). If nothing else, I’m thankful that we have are a nation of laws, and we have law enforcement professionals who lay their lives on the line every single day making sure we can have a free, safe and open society. Even those who despise law enforcement need to be thankful for the men and women behind the badge; if anyone doubts that, I’ll introduce you to Simon something and let him curl your ears with horror stories.
For all our problems with health care, simple illnesses we can handle with a trip to the drug store or a visit to a doctor (even if we have no money) are a death sentence in his land. A walk down the street can endanger his entire family; yet it’s inconceivable to him to miss church on Sunday. I’m thankful we have the freedom to choose whether or not we will worship; although I get grumbly at the number of
folks who don’t, it is their decision.
I’m thankful for a wife and family who love me, irritating as I can be, as well as readers who make it possible for me to have what’s still the greatest job in the world. I’m also thankful for my parents, who taught me my trade – and that they made sure. if everything ever went sideways, I’d have most of the skills I need to keep my home and family fed.
I can’t emphasize enough how thankful I am for my friends, and again, please forgive me, but that shone during the aftermath of the storm. I had to learn to temper my remarks, since a casual mention of something lost or damaged could instantly turn into a delivery of its replacement. A man with friends is never poor, but a man with friends such as mine is truly wealthy.
As much as I love those close to me, I love my solitude as well. A forest of steepling pines, a cypress swamp whose water smells of age-old rot and beaver castor and fish, a golden corn field on a cooling afternoon, with a good dog and an old shotgun, the sun breaking across the ocean a hundred miles away on a silver morning, the middle of a soft green pasture in the dead of night – God’s glory and majesty is best demonstrated in these places, in my opinion, and I’m thankful that I can sometimes run from the confines of my comfortable office and enjoy them as they were meant to be.
I simply cannot coherently count the reasons I have to be thankful, although first and foremost I’m thankful for my salvation, and thankful for the fact that I know God created all these reasons for me to be thankful. It’s really humbling, when you think about the kind of love he has for all of us.
My Thursday off likely will be spent behind the wheel of a vehicle, rather than on a handmade bridge across a blackwater canal in a cathedral of longleaf pines – but you know something?
I have so much to be thankful for, I won’t have a choice but to have a good time.
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