giving thanks

I’ve always loved Thanksgiving.  To me it is meaningful and rich without the hype and prep and pressure that Christmas often brings.  Simple, warm, and reflective.  I dig it.

Thinking about what I’m thankful for always leads me first to the things I can see—the people around me, the people I miss, the things I have.  And to the realities I feel in my heart like God’s love and knowing Jesus.  But this year I also have this deep sense of being caught up in God’s story for my life, and I am overwhelmed with gratefulness about that.  

#31daysofcalling brought so many beautiful things to the forefront of my mind all at once, and looking back on those posts makes fountains of tears roll down my face.  And to think—as I sit here and type this, God is at work in countless more ways that I can’t see even now.  I’m going to wear out this John Piper quote—“God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you might be aware of 3 of them.”  

Sometimes we’re in places of heightened awareness of what we have to be thankful for, and sometimes our vision about our life feels blurry and confused.   But even if things seem blurry now, we can always—ALWAYS—be thankful for all God has done in the past, thankful for the things He’s doing now that we can’t see, and thankful for the hope of His continued work in our lives and in the world around us.  

So let’s give thanks—for all the things we can see and feel, and all the things we can’t see and feel yet. He is good and faithful.

And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. -Philippians 1:6