I am so thankful for Thanksgiving!  I love this time of year – the changing leaves, apples, pumpkin pies and cooler temperatures. I love families and friends getting together and I love football.

I love that the food is mostly the same each Thanksgiving and I love families gathered in prayer and thankfulness. 

When it comes to giving thanks, I am often reminded of what someone once told me about the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve couldn’t stop staring at the one tree which they knew they should not eat from there are two reasons to be sad – firstly because we know that they eat from it and lose their place in the garden.  Secondly because they became fixated on that one tree and stopped noticing all the other trees.

I think what was meant by that is this: we can too often become fixated on the one blessing we do not have and lose sight of all the blessings around us if we would just take time to look.  Often we feel sad because we don’t have something – it’s a good reminder to us that even our first parents did not get all the blessings.

Thanksgiving, if it is to be construed in any way as a Christian holiday which one can argue it isn’t, must be looked at through that lens. What does it mean not only to give thanks but to remember the great gift we have in believing in a God who is not distant but is with us in Jesus Christ, a God who prepares a table for us, and only desires that we show up to the feast.

I wish each and every one of you a wonderful Thanksgiving!  My prayer is that your day or your weekend is filled with food, laughter and spending time with those who are important to you.  I know that many of us will be filled with memories of those who are no longer with us – and in those moments I pray that you will not be afraid to voice your grief and then give thanks for the hope we all have of the resurrection. 

I also want to say – I am so THANKFUL to be your Pastor! 

In Christ – Pr. Jeanne