Hi friends! Just popping in to say Happy Thanksgiving! I woke this morning feeling unprepared and a little unfurled. This past week held work on marketing projects that started to eat up my calendar and my babes were struck with high fevers and up for hours each night. All the crafting I had planned didn't happen, all the historical readings I'd laid out remained still on their pages. My baking efforts resulted in one very simple apple pie and none of the Pinterest worthy cinnamon bun and bacon turkeys I'd dreamed of waking my children up with this morning.
The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is currently trumpeting just blocks from here and we are home, missing it.
Pretty much, this Thanksgiving feels like a big 'ol giant flop.
And yet somehow I woke today with hope bursting. I just had to share it. The reality of this day just hit me. . . . hard. Maybe more than ever because of my feelings of weakness and failure.
I've been pondering how interesting it is that it is this day that ushers in the holiday season. It is with a heart of thanks that we prepare for Immanuel.
To offer thanksgiving today means that we recognize that a gift has been given.
To give thanks, first we must receive.
So, we enter into Advent this week, the season of waiting for the nearness of God, in anticipation for the greatest gift ever given, with hearts and lips fresh full of thanks.
Do you know the gift?
Have your hands opened and taken hold of the generosity of God? He has given us his very self and to live every day in the grace what has been offered to us in this season orients our hearts to a Person whose very nature breathes thanksgiving through us every day of the year.
Friends, may our thank you's today, be the first step in receiving 'God With Us.' He is here, even when we fall apart, even when we fail to meet our own expectations. He never fails us.
Happiest Thanksgiving to you and your families!
Kristen