Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday. My favorite memories are always centered around BEING with those I love. I’m no shopper and decorating was never my forte. I’m a homebody at heart, but working through my child-rearing days put a strain on enjoying the holidays. There were never enough hours in the day to DO all that needed doing. I think that is why Thanksgiving became my favorite.
I have four siblings, each of whom have gifted me with cousins for my daughters. As they all grew, I loved watching them develop into best friends. Many Thanksgivings were spent at “Aunt Susie’s” home where my rule was: You are welcome to come, but bring food!!
My contribution always included green bean casserole, the one dish I felt competent in preparing. It is my claim to fame, having won 3rd prize at the Pearl River County Fair with it when I was in 5th grade.
Those Thanksgivings memories still bring me great pleasure. My two girls ended up with 16 cousins from my siblings. I’m the middle child and the cousins came like stair-steps for about 10 years between my older sisters and me. There was a little pause and then my younger siblings contributed, ending right about the time the second-cousins began arriving. A couple of weeks ago my dad announced that there are 64 of us, counting spouses and all. That’s quite a clan! And is one of the reasons I decided to blog, just to keep everyone informed!
Thanksgivings gave us an opportunity to meet boyfriends and girlfriends and laugh and learn what everyone was up to. I was so glad my nieces and nephews felt comfortable bringing their friends, knowing they would be welcome. In 2014 my firstborn was married and I finally got a son! Since then, with pregnancies and newborns, we haven’t hosted the big family meal and I have missed those gatherings. Hoping to rekindle it in 2020!!
As my news has gone out, I have received several gifts of encouragement in text messages from friends and family. Many of these include passages of scripture which have come to live in the hearts of those who texted them. One such passage was received yesterday from two sources, a niece in the morning and a dear friend in the afternoon. It reads like this:
“Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness. Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.”
I recognized the passage from 2 Corinthians 9, but new to me was the different phrasing used in The Message. I like thinking that Paul also accepted his “thorn” as a gift. I had not seen that word used in other translations of the Bible. And yet that is exactly how I feel about this cancer. Without this gift, I would never have experienced the wonderful grace which has accompanied it.
When I think of grace, I think of those awkward moments when the wrong words have come out of my mouth. Few people know just how to smile and cover my words with a blanket of kindness. Draped in their kindness, my words end up sounding much better than when they left my mouth.
That’s exactly what I have experienced in my journey thus far. The sting has been removed from the word cancer. It is covered with God’s smile and his grace. What sounded harsh at the outset, has been softened like a dirty landscape is softened when covered by a few inches of snow. Now it has beauty for me where before there was none.
I hope you’ll stick with me long enough to get a glimpse of it. Now I’m off to cook a ham for my three year old grandson. When I asked him if he was going to eat turkey with me, he said, “I don’t want turkey. I want ham!” So ham it is. Happy Thanksgiving and may you be as blessed as I am this year.
Susan Shares 