The Year We Nearly Overlooked Thanksgiving | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: The Year We Nearly Overlooked Thanksgiving | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ellen Bethel
04/24/05
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It was a difficult phone call we received in November. My husband’s sister had called to tell us we should make arrangements to be with the family at the hospital as their Dad was very ill and the Doctors had recommended a family meeting to get affairs in order.
We quickly made all the arrangements necessary to make the eight-hour trip and prayed earnestly that we would not be too late. Upon our arrival it was apparent that my husband’s mother was in despair with the responsibilities that had been placed upon her shoulders. She looked up at my husband in her grief and bewilderment stating that she couldn’t make this decision for someone else’s life. The moment was nothing less then heart wrenching. The following days we all did our best to comfort one another, we helped with the other siblings children and we all made continuous efforts to make mom’s life a little easier.
The evening before Thanksgiving Day someone had mentioned that we would be spending Thanksgiving in the hospital this year. Wow, was it Thanksgiving Day already? We had nearly overlooked the yearly celebration of family, friends and food. We sat solemnly in the waiting room looking around thinking of ways to keep the others mind off of the critical situation before us.
Many of us spent this particular Thanksgiving together in the hospital eating what the hospital provided for the families of their patients. It was the first Thanksgiving that we spent together going over the very essential things we were thankful for. We began to talk of our lives and how thankful we were with the various ways that the Lord has worked in them. I witnessed strength in the family that I had never seen before as they focused on the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Although it was a long haul dad survived and was released from the hospital the following February.
I still think back to that very different Thanksgiving Day though and reflect on how the things that last an eternity were the things that we found the most valuable, not the homes, cars, clothes, money but the lives and internal things of God that He has placed in our lives. We were together and we expressed love, tears, sorrow, grief and we walked each other through every step. We were thankful for our salvation and the enormous sacrifice the Lord had made for each of us. We were thankful for another opportunity to be together come what may we had another opportunity to show our love for the other.
True Thanksgiving now has become a valued expression on a daily basis with my family and me. Why wait for once a year when we can celebrate the goodness of God daily in our lives from one moment to the next. True Thanksgiving is what the pilgrims experienced when they had made their journey and survived the winter with losses to large to count they found hope in giving thanks to God for His very presence in their lives. Public thanks and prayer is how George Washington phrased it as he proclaimed our day of Thanksgiving October 3, 1789.
Public thanks and prayer is what we experienced the year we nearly overlooked Thanksgiving.

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