Having a heart of gratitude is always a good idea and it is a practice I try to keep up. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it is not about shopping for gifts, or pleasing people. It is really about being with family and friends. Relationships and gratitude are the hallmarks of this holiday. And yes, there is the feast! Traditional turkey or not, food is central to our American tradition of Thanksgiving. I have had a few lean Thanksgivings in my lifetime, but I am even grateful for those, because they offer a contrast to highlight the goodness of God.
Recently, I was invited to build a mini cairn. The invitation was as follows: “Create a cairn. A Cairn is a pile of stones to mark a pathway or indicate a site of importance, a sort of altar. Notice if the cairn is an offering for something – an event, a movement, a person in your life, a memory. Cairns can mark a “thin place” – a place where heaven and earth seem to come closer.”
Small rocks were provided, but I remembered I had my own mini stones I found on the shores of Lake Superior this summer. I began to choose and place the stones. Unlike in the wilderness I had a glue gun to stabilize the stones so I can move it. All the better for further contemplation. As I was assembling the mini pile of stones, I realized there were many layers of meaning and all of them were things to be grateful for.
I have gratitude for the foundation my God and my parents gave me in life. Family, though mostly gone now, affected me profoundly. I thought of other people who touched my life and experiences at every age of my life. Relationships, work, schools, camps, countries I have lived in and places I have visited all have left their marks on me.
I also have gratitude for the challenges and difficulties in my life. In some ways I am more grateful for those because they have pushed me closer to my Creator.
I look forward to sitting with this mini-monument. Each stone is unique. The gray stone on the right of the base has an indent in it. My friend calls rocks like that, “God rocks” because they are hard yet somehow a very distinct hole was made. This one looks like a thumb print to me. It feels foundational. I even found a very small heart-shaped stone that I placed on the top. The love of God is the indispensable capstone that holds everything in balance.
I look forward to having more conversations with God using this cairn as a jumping off point. May I see my life better from our Creator’s perspective and understand better His presence with me each step along the way.
I encourage you to make your own cairn, or to use this photo of mine, to contemplate the Goodness of our Creator in your life. Whether this is a lean Thanksgiving or one abounding with obvious blessings, may you find gratitude in the fact you are never really alone.
In HIS grip,
Andrea
