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This Thanksgiving, more so than any other in my life, I am overflowing with thankfulness. Overflowing with gratitude to the Lord for His goodness in our lives. 

This has been the worst year of our lives. One thing after another has left us discouraged, broken and in some seasons, full of doubt. But, we have seen God’s consistent faithfulness over the past year. Not in big neon sign ways but in small whispers to sometimes press on, sometimes keep trusting and other times just wait. 

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3 

Our prayers of thanks and our offerings have begun to look different. 

When J first started his job as hospital chaplain a few months ago, it was with not much thankfulness that I accepted this as God’s provision over our lives. His hours are long, much of the time, he isn’t really with us even when he is here because he is so exhausted both emotionally and physically. 

Slowly, the very thing that I was so begrudging toward has been the thing that is changing our lives. 

I drive an hour to take the kids up to the hospital to meet J for a quick dinner while he is on call all night, hoping he won’t get paged while we eat. He’s late and we wait for him in the atrium. He had just been with a family as they took their 2 year old off life support and waited with their 4 year old until the child life specialist was able to come relieve him.

 Our tearful prayer before our meal that night was a little different than the ones before.

 When he is paged to a sick child’s room only to meet the father outside and find out that his mother has just died in the hospital across the street, J helps the father deliver this news to his son. He pours out prayers of strength over a father who is facing loss at every turn. 

I weep for these families, pray for them and begin to realize that not just J but our whole family is giving part of our lives for those who are hurting. When these things happen back to back throughout a night, and J arrives in his dress pants and pressed shirt in the middle of the night, no one in their grief is thinking that he might have just finished ministering to another family in an equally horrible situation. Nor do they think, ‘when does this guy sleep?’, or ‘does he have a family?’. Instead, they feel the presence of God in their deepest place of pain. 

When J walks a husband through the most horrific phone call of his life, I know that it is the Holy Spirit that speaks through him, offering comfort beyond our comprehension.  A mother in another state who gives birth to a child who is immediately life flighted here. The father who quickly makes the drive only to learn that there is no way their child will survive. He stands beside the bed of his infant and over his cell phone, gently gives a description to his wife of what is happening as they take their infant off life support. 

Again, I weep. Again, I am overwhelmed by how selfish I must sound as I bemoan the worst year of our lives.

J’s job is changing us from the inside out. This Thanksgiving isn’t going to pass me by without wholehearted time of worship and gratitude for all the Lord has given us. I can’t help but overflow with gratitude today for the Lord’s goodness in our lives. 

He has given us just enough.

 He is enough. 

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26

Tags: Create, Inspire, Thanksgiving

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