November 2004

‘Tis the season to give thanks. But have you noticed how little emphasis is put on this holiday? Except for the seasonal food (canned pumpkin, cranberry, stuffing mixes, etc.) on display in the grocery stores, there is very little mention of what Thursday is all about. Christmas decorations abound already and Santa is already taking requests at area malls.

To some degree, I am a traditionalist. Okay, so I’ve been working on Christmas shopping since October, but I refuse to decorate for that holiday until after Thanksgiving. Someone has to hold out for the memories of why we set aside this day in November. It might as well be me. :)

Seriously though, I believe we’ve lost the heart of Thanksgiving in this country. Even the traditional stories of the Pilgrims and the Indians has suffered from political correctness. The fact that the Pilgrims thanked God for their very survival and blessed Him for sending the Indians to aid them is as far removed from our thinking as the years that separate those events from today.

When a newscast mentions giving thanks or a reporter alludes to this Thursday, they normally fail to remind the people Who we are giving thanks to. And if we do mention God, the images in the minds of the majority do not fit the God of the Bible.

Not so at that first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims knew to Whom they were giving thanks. And they knew why they were grateful. They had crossed a vast ocean and begun a new life in a wild and foreign place. Many had died in the process. They alone remained. But I dare say they gave thanks for more than their survival. The reasons they left England had everything to do with the freedom to worship Jesus Christ in the way they believed was Biblically correct (unlike the Church of England at that time). They were Separtists, once persecuted for their faith, now free to worship and obey as they saw fit. Their thanksgiving would have included praise to God for His protection and His salvation in Jesus Christ.

For the American Christian, that’s the real reason this day should hold special meaning. What if the Pilgrims had never come? What if the only people to settle this land had been money hungry opportunists? (And there were some.) What if all of the explorers had purposed only to profit to their own gain, rather than holding in mind a greater goal – to reach lost people with the gospel of Christ? America would have been settled by a far different group with a much different outcome. Thanksgiving Day would be just another November Thursday with nothing to remind us of where we came from and why we are here.

As this Thursday approaches, may it find us pausing to remember that without the Pilgrims, religious freedom in this country might not exist as we know it today. Amidst turkey and football and Macy’s parade, let us take time to truly thank the One whose land it is, who allows us to live in peace, who has blessed this nation far above what we deserve.

I hope all of you have a joyous day with family and friends, and remember to thank God for His goodness.

Well, actually, we can – that is, we can control ourselves and choose to love those around us. What we can’t control is other people. We cannot make someone else love us. Not that we don’t try…

Undoubtedly, every person has met someone they’d like to become friends with, but for some reason they don’t quite understand, that person does not share their feelings of comraderie. Sometimes personalities don’t click. Sometimes people are afraid to reach out to someone new. Sometimes people are too content with the status quo of their lives.

I don’t presume to understand the inner workings of the human mind, but I do know how it feels to be rejected. There have been times in my life that I could not get close to someone, no matter how much I might have wanted them for a friend. Truth is, I’ve probably done the same thing to others who might have wanted to get close to me.

Churches struggle with this. I’ve visited a number a churches in my lifetime, been a member of several, and I’ve yet to find any church that has conquered the human falacy of clickishness or unfriendliness. Why is it that we just feel uncomfortable reaching out to people? What keeps us in our corner, unwilling to get beyond the superficial with our fellow believers?

I think it partly has to do with levels of maturity and where we are in our walk with the Lord. How obedient am I willing to be if He should prompt me to befriend someone that I might not “click” with? How transparent am I willing to be with people if it might bless someone’s heart? How much am I willing to risk rejection?

Then too, loving another person is risky. To love is to trust that person with thoughts we might not share with anyone else. To trust is to place our assurance in that person not to trample on our feelings, not to abandon us. To love unconditionally is to love in spite of, not because of.

And most of us, at one time or another, will take that risk and lose. People will fail us. Their love will wax cold and they will walk away from the relationship. And there is nothing we can do about it.

When I think about past hurts or broken friendships, I can become discouraged, until I stop and remember that Jesus was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. If people hated Him, they will not love His followers, because a servant is not above his Master. But I also have this assurance – that He will never leave me or forsake me – and that He chooses to love me in spite of me.

In response to that knowledge, the only thing that I can do is to be obedient myself. To step out of my corner of self-interest and befriend someone who needs me. To take the risk of friendliness to those around me even if it means that the other person walks away.

Because in the end, only God’s love lasts forever. Only Jesus’ love is truly unconditional.

Today is Veteran’s Day but it is also my firstborn’s birthday. There is something joyful and sad about a child’s birthday. I can still picture him as he looked when he was newborn, yet he stands before me now a grown man. Where did those 22 years go?

I have good reason to be proud of him. He’s gifted in many ways, intelligent, logical yet caring, devoted to the truth. He is a man after God’s own heart. I couldn’t ask for more.

But it’s still strange to watch him and his brothers grow up around us like tender shoots into mature, spreading trees. Sometimes I have flashbacks of them as toddlers and wish I could hold them as I did back then. I used to protect them. Now they could protect me.

Still, this is the way God designed life, and I wouldn’t trade the changes for anything. The future is bright, despite the new things (good or bad) we must embrace. Someday our family will grow again and I’ll have daughters-in-law to love and grandchildren to cherish like I’ve done our own children since the day they were born.

But not yet.

I’m grateful for the times we still have as a family, for the friends that crowd our house, for the crazy antics that accompany a household of young adult men.

It’s good to remember their birthdays.

Big things in life can turn our world upside down. Things like marriage, having a baby, buying or building a new house, getting into debt, getting out of debt, growing older, broken relationships, changing jobs, retiring, taking a big trip, divorce, death of a loved one – these kinds of things can devastate us – or bring us great joy. Either way they touch us, and we are never the same.

But it’s the little things that often reveal the kind of person we really are. And it’s the little things that drive us the most crazy.

Take banking, for instance. Let’s suppose someone were to write me a check that bounced. I would go to that person and ask them to make good on what they owed me. No real problem unless they were untrustworthy. But why is it that my bank charges ME five dollars to process a bounced check that wasn’t mine? They penalize the recipient of such checks because they had to do a little extra work to inform me of the problem? Isn’t that part of their job?

I understand penalizing the person who wrote a check on insufficient funds. They should have made sure they had the amount in their checking account before they wrote the bogus check. The bank is justified in charging them a fee for the extra work they have to do. But to charge the victim? That makes NO sense to me.

It’s these little things that make me pause and have to check my attitude in response to them. Sure I can get angry and holler at the bank teller and overreact, or I can ask God to work things out and then see what I can do to get someone to fix the situation – calmly, trusting God’s control.

The little things defintely stretch my character.

I woke up toying with a new idea for a story. I always love it when that happens. There is something refreshing that accompanies a creative effort, and the sparks of imagination soon flare into a whole, complicated book. Or they fizzle, which has certainly happened to me over the years.

It’s been a while since I contemplated a whole new story line and I don’t know where this one will take me. I love it when such thoughts catch me on the eve of rising, holding me captive for a few moments while I let the scene play out in my head. A new theme is also burning in my heart – one that I’d love to weave into a tale that would linger in the minds of readers.

Ah, but this is every storyteller’s dream.

I was reading in John 14 last night and came to the verses where Jesus said to ask anything in His name and He would do it. It brought back the desires that I’ve struggled with for years – the longing to see my books in print. Does that desire every really go away? And yet, I will say that I still have peace with where God has placed me right now. He has His purposes in waiting. He has His reasons for saying no, too. But that doesn’t mean, at least in this case, that I can’t keep asking. I just ask with a different sense of peace now.

In the long run, and in the whole scheme of this thing called life, what I write won’t really matter. When eternity’s bell tolls and time is no more, it will matter most that I knew Him, much more than what I wrote of Him.

Today is a day to rejoice – at least for those of us who voted for President Bush and for moral values. Also, our state chose to keep marriage the way God intended it – between one man and one woman. It was nice to see that this same measure passed overwhelmingly in eleven states.

The election coverage kept me up too late last night, and I’m paying for it today, but the end results were worth the wait. Still, I’m exceedingly glad the campaigning (and the TV ads aimed at voters) has come to an end.

I do think the election process could be handled better though. Absentee ballots should be counted the day before, not after the polls close. Holding the country hostage until the next day is ridiculous. Maybe someday they’ll fix that.

I did learn one thing from this election. It caused me to pray more for the president, something I told the Lord I would try to do more of from now on. He’s a good man with a tough job. Christians are supposed to pray for their government leaders. I hope to do more of that.

And now my focus turns to the future – particularly the rest of the year. My oldest son has a birthday next week and then Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner. I love Christmas! I’m looking forward to shopping and baking and decorating and planning social gatherings with family and friends.

And amidst all of that, I want to do some writing. I have a children’s story that I want to rewrite and put up on this site sometime soon. Then I’ve got the next in my suspense series to work on. I don’t have to write it for a contract right now – but I want to. The story intrigues me and I think it’s time I got to know the characters better.

I have a lot to look forward to. :)