It's now the day after Thanksgiving. Reflecting on our holiday I wonder about those traditions and how they are being lived out in our lives. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It started with worshiping on Wednesday night. It was a pleasure for me to give the sermon for our little community's ecumenical worship. A true blessing to worship together! Thursday brought friends over to our house and a table full of food. Yes, filled . . . absolutely filled. The 12 of us ate and laughed, played cards and laughed some more. It was a day of being thankful for friends and family.
However, there was a friend missing. We had invited a dear friend of our over to join us for the holiday. She told me that she had to work from 10 am - 6 pm that day. Yup folks, Thanksgiving day. I was very excited though she would plan to join us that evening for some Thanksgiving fun. I totally understood when I received the text message at 6 pm saying thanks so much, but she was just so tired and 1 am would come very early. My friend had spaghetti-Os for dinner that night. So . . . to recap, she missed Thanksgiving dinner with her own family, she missed Thanksgiving leftovers with her friends and, to top it all off, she would go back to work in the middle of the night. All for what? Retail. I completely understand that there are certain people who must work holidays. Our family has lived that life. Nursers, doctors, prison guards, police officers, firemen . . . the list goes on and I know I am missing many that should be included. However, retail . . . really? Our society just devoted a day to being thankful. Then the very next day (or depending on your shopping preference, Thanksgiving night) our society spends time in a frenzy buying on Black Friday.
Black Friday. Try explaining that concept to two children from Ethiopia that are experiencing American Thanksgiving for the first time or two. On Thanksgiving, people are thankful to God. On Black Friday, people go in the middle of the night and buy things just because they are on sale. There are people who do not have the opportunity to be with their families on a holiday because other people want to be able to shop and still other people that own those companies want to make money.
To me this is the difference between merely being thankful and truly living thankfully. When we settle for just being thankful, we say thank you when it's obvious to do so. We celebrate what we have. We think of ourselves being the recipients of blessings. When we live thankfully we look at things a bit differently. We notice the world around us with gratitude. We manage our resources in a more responsible way looking out for others as well. We are thankful for what God can do for others through us.
Under no circumstances do I believe that I have this all figured out. Nor do I pretend that I always live thankfully verses just being thankful. I can be really bad at this . . . often. I am both guilty of merely being thankful (and at times forgetting even that) but at times I do manage to live thankfully. It is something that we each need to strive daily to remember.
May God bless you and keep you. May He make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He look upon you with favor and give you peace. In response may we live lives of thankfulness and gratitude in this season and each day. Amen.
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