A Week to Give Thanks!
What a week! I am completing a week long Zoom based training event that began last Wednesday. Nickie is trying to wrap up our regular office and worship needs in a very short week. You have been "delivering" Thanksgiving meals this week. At the same time we are stepping into Advent, being asked to prepare for the coming of Jesus without a moment to catch our breath. Didn't Matthew just tell us a story about that? And we are doing all of this in a moment that is anything but normal.
So, brothers and sisters, we must take some time later this week, perhaps Thursday, to give thanks. Whatever your Thanksgiving is going to look like this year, I pray you are able to pause, lift your eyes to the heavens, lift your voice to God, and truly give thanks. Perhaps it is thanks for gifts received that are now the foundation for life giving memories, likely along with a teardrop. Perhaps it is thanks for new gifts coming into being right now. Perhaps it is thanks for the small, daily accumulating gifts that become easy to ignore in their routine. Whatever gifts seem most concrete and reassuring this week, lift them high and share them widely with God and those you are gathering with, however you are gathering.
As the church we are called to be a people of gratitude, sharing generously because we have received generously. May God's generosity fill your Thanksgiving this week.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Alan