21 Nov On Thanksgiving, and thanks-living.

It’s sweater weather in Virginia … finally. A season of flaming color, red noses, and potted mums strewn haphazardly across my yard. It is also the season for Thanksgiving here in the USA and also, pumpkin flavored EVERYTHING. (Thank you Trader Joes). For me, it can sometimes be a complicated thing when intertwined with the outward flow of material blessings.

Currently, we live in the second richest county in America (by virtue of Uncle Sam, not my husband’s paycheck!). It is a consistent, continuous conversation in our home to teach our children gratitude for the things they are given and contentment over the wealth of stuff we already have. Comparison is an insidious, soul-sickening disease and we will fight it tooth and nail.

Plus, again thanks to Uncle Sam we’ve moved a lot in the last dozen years. This requires regular purges and repacking of our motley collection of things. Routinely cataloging our belongings provides me with some rich meditation on things. The having of things versus the not having of things. Why I have the things and other people don’t. Combine that with a devastating global news cycle over the last decade and I wrestle daily with what to do with all this stuff and how to guide our tiny humans in the care and keeping of it.

I know you are all dying to know what I came up with. Here it is:

Material blessing does not equal spiritual favor. 

My excess of physical goods and financial security are not driven by my goodness, by merit, or the notches in my spiritual belt. If that were truly the case, I would be a sorry sight. And my friends, I love this country so, but I did not earn my spot here. My citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven carries an eternal weight not matched by loyalty to the Stars and Stripes.

 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:4-9

On Thanksgiving and thanks-living.

At the risk of offending, I must say this. We are NOT #blessed. We are hashtag undeserving of His mercy and grace and aching to take the outward trappings of this earthly life, to use them-not discard or disdain them-and consign them all to Kingdom work. 

So when you are giving thanks this week, when you are bent low over construction paper turkey hands and sheparding little hearts in gratitude and the gospel – remember this.

Every thought, word, and deed we have in this lifetime is a response, sacrificial or selfish, to the grace we’ve been given.

How will you respond?

With love from me and all the little turkeys I am thankful for.

~M.