Hey everyone. I know this is a little late seeing as Thanksgiving has come and gone, but I read this and it really hit me big. This is a blog from To Write Love On Her Arms that was posted a little over a week ago that I wanted to share. I added stuff to the end with my own thoughts.
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http://www.twloha.com/blog/honestly-thanks/
Just wanted to say a quick hello and Happy Thanksgiving. It's an interesting day where families get together and we're invited to consider the things for which we're thankful. i suppose this holiday, like pretty much every holiday, can look and feel a lot of different ways. In some homes, i imagine it's epic and people stand and share aloud the things they're thankful for. For others, it might just be a lot of football on television and conversations that stick close to the surface. Maybe it's a day you love and look forward to, an easy day. Maybe it's a difficult day, rooms filled with elephants, things left unsaid or people simply missing...
No matter which version sounds familiar, i think there's something powerful about taking a day or even some fraction of a day and pausing to consider that we have some things to be thankful for. Because if we're not careful, we start to buy the lies... We start to believe that we have nothing or that we are nothing or that we're alone. Shame creeps in and tells us that we're stuck, that we're too far gone, that our family is broken beyond repair...
Maybe Thanksgiving is a chance to remember that which is true, and to say it in the face of the lies. i think it's important to remember that the story isn't over, that there are things worth fighting for and living for, that beauty still happens and love still happens. Hope and redemption as well.
Take a moment tonight and consider these things.
What do you have to be thankful for?
Who do you love?
Who loves you?
Who needs you?
What are your dreams?
What's worth fighting for?
What's worth running after?
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Thanksgiving was tough for me this year. With the recent passing of my mom's father and just some stuff that has popped up in my life the past month or so. I had high hopes for the break from school, hoping to take some time away from stuff and try to a objective look at my own life and see what the heck has been going on lately. My soul and emotions have been in raging turmoil the past weeks and I hate feeling that way I don't know what to do about it. I thought it was because of the lack of seeing my friends, because really my friends are my life. They keep me grounded, they keep me safe, they keep me alive. But upon my return to school and seeing them again, I discovered that was a deception; I only feel even more separated. I feel like people are treading on egg shells around me, that they don't treat me like a human being, but like a fragile doll. Some just don't, they seem to keep their distance and limit their time dealing with me to a bare minimal.
On Thanksgiving Day I wrote a list of things I'm thankful for and looking back it's a list of the most superficial crap. Friends, grades, what are they in the long run? I will be separated from the people I call friends now this time next year and I will have new friends. Don't get me wrong, I love all of you, but I can keep using you as my foundation, as the 'rock' i stand on because in reality its shifting sand. Even love, it's so fleeting. One moment you seem like you couldn't stand being apart from someone, the next you can't stand seeing them and you just have to walk away. The times spent together are amazing, and almost worth the time apart, but I give myself 9 months. In 9 months, where will we be? I will be following my heart and investing it in studying of the Word and investing into a younger generation and you will be either here or there, following your heart into the wilderness to find whatever is there.
I feel weird saying this, but I am thankful for my family and what they have provided for me. I will always love them, even though lately I definitely haven't liked them. They provide a house to return to, food to eat, clothes to wear, and a bed to sleep in. While I generally hate being there, my home is a constant in a life full of changing variables.
Above all, I am thankful for my Lord Jesus Christ and what He means to me. He will always be the Rock on which I stand. Even though I am quite often thrown off by the buffeting winds and try to stand on sand for a while, I always know He is there with outstretched hands ready to pull me back up. I don't live like I'm supposed to and yet He loves me.
So, in response to the questions Jamie posed at the end of his blog:
What do you have to be thankful for? a God who loves me unconditionally
Who do you love? I love my friends, despite what I often say, they do keep me alive a good portion of the time
Who loves you? At this moment, the only person's love I can count on are my parents and my God
Who needs you? No one, I am expendable.
What are your dreams? To one day be an example, someone people look up to
What's worth fighting for? My faith, my friends
What's worth running after? There is nothing worth running after except that which my God has laid before me
In closing, answer the questions yourself, and if you are up to it, post it. Everyone loves encouraging words, hugs of love, a simple smile full of affection. But often times what means the most to people (especially me who sucks at reading between the lines) are honest words that mean that say and say what you mean.
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