Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. We celebrate by coming together with friends and family, and we eat! Actually, we don’t just eat…we feast! We celebrate with food and people. Most Thanksgiving celebrations don’t usually take it to the level of the first Thanksgiving when the Pilgrims and the Indians feasted for three days, but we often have enough left overs to last three days if we wanted to.
I also love that aside from the food, we do not give gifts! This is a day where families come together if they are able. Often those with no blood relations near them are invited to local families or churches to enjoy each other and the food. (Did I say we eat a lot?)
Ever since my son began to play football nearly 20 years ago, his participation in or around the sport has occupied a place in our morning because of the annual High School rivalry. That’s OK though because it builds our larger community and it often adds to the conversation around the dinner table after the game.
We come together to acknowledge and celebrate the goodness of God in our lives. I find celebration in our day and age is something that is often misplaced or lost all together outside of sporting competitions.
Being able to share with others what we are thankful to God for is important. Even saying out loud one thing we are thankful for starts or strengthens healthy neural-pathways in our brains.
It releases good, a bit like when our Creator said at the end of each day of Creation. “And God saw that it was good.” There is something reassuring about that. Often with a group, one statement of the goodness of God inspires multiple reminders in the other people.
Instead of focusing on the negative, we have an opportunity to inspire ourselves and those around us with reminders of how God has met us in the mundane and in the extraordinary. And we get to do it at a feast!
What are you Thankful for? I’d love to hear! Please share and inspire me to remember my own experiences of God’s goodness.
