Thanksgiving

 

As Thanksgiving comes this year the only tree I know of with any leaves on it is our family’s Thankfulness tree. At the end of October Robin cut the trunk and branches out of construction paper and taped them to the wall in our dining room. As part of our family devotions on the first day of November each member of the family took a paper leaf and wrote something on it that we were thankful for, taping the leaf to the tree. Then, as we ended our devotions in prayer, each person included whatever it was that they were thankful for in their part of the prayer. As I write this post there are 120 leaves on the tree, and six days left in November for us to add to it. The leaves on the trees outside have fallen and blown away, while the tree in our dining room continues to add new ones.

Here’s what happens. Each day after dinner I get out a Bible and a book we are using to teach our children the Heidelberg Catechism. I lead that portion of our devotions and then Robin leads the part around thankfulness. Each day she has a different suggestion for the leaf. Something we are thankful for about the person sitting on our right. Or something that we know how to do. Or something about living here on the reservation. While we have the same topic we have a wide variety of things each day, which we share with each other before we pray together. Robin and I agree that it has been a very good activity for our family. 

One of the best parts of this activity is not the “being thankful for” but “being thankful to,” which happens as we pray. The Thankfulness tree has opened up our minds to be aware that even in the midst of the pandemic there are many things to be thankful for. But none of these things come at random, as if they were self-existent and we merely happened to stumble into them.

Each thing that I am thankful for, that we are thankful for, comes to us from God, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The opening of John’s Gospel includes these words:

“All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” 

If all things were made through Jesus then all things come through Jesus, and all thanks go to Jesus. 

Thanksgiving 2020 will be very different from past years. Fewer large family gatherings and more small celebrations. Whatever the size of the gathering there will still be people who make it part of their celebration to share together what they may be thankful for.

The thought I want to leave you with for this Thanksgiving is to go beyond what you are thankful for and give thanks to the Lord Jesus, the one from whose hand all things come.

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.