Thankful

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. Thanksgiving has always been about family. About spending time with those I love best. About special dinners around the table with family and friends.


In the last couple of years my attitude about Thanksgiving has changed a little bit. I still love sitting around the table sharing a special meal with family and friends. I still enjoy memories of Thanksgivings past. Memories of my parents, now in Heaven. Memories of our children. Memories of Christmas shopping with my mother on the day after Thanksgiving. (We didn't call it Black Friday back in those days.)


But since my stroke in November, 2016, Thanksgiving is forever linked to that event. I still have no memory of Thanksgiving 2016, my first day in Rehab.

Last year I was able to assemble a meal for my family. Some of it I actually made myself!

This Thanksgiving I am overwhelmed when I think of how far I have come in these two years. Thanksgiving has truly become a season of thanksgiving. I have come a long way!

Even if there were never any more turkey and pumpkin pie, I have so much to be thankful for. I am blessed beyond measure. As I have read Facebook posts from two years ago, I am overwhelmed by the prayers offered to God on my behalf. I am overwhelmed by the notes and cards and letters I received. I am overwhelmed and humbled by the outpouring of love from family and friends and even from people I have never met.


Thanksgiving is more than a holiday for me. It is more than a great meal. It is a lifestyle. It is a constant awareness that our God is a great God. That He is faithful. That He answers prayer. That nothing is impossible with our God!


"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."  (Ephesians 3:20-21 NASB)