Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is at our house every year. Bucky's family all comes over, everyone bringing way too much food for the 25 of us, and we hang out eating and laughing and retelling all their old stories. It's a fun time even though it's a whirlwind of cooking and cleaning during the days leading up to the big day.

Beddingfield/Ellerbee Cousins

In the midst of all the excitement over food and family time, my hope for this year was that Bucky and I would not miss this holiday's special opportunity to remind Zachary of how much we have to be thankful. Zac and I have been studying the Pilgrims, Squanto and the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, but I wanted to be sure that he personalized this holiday and remembered to give thanks to our Father in heaven for all his many blessings, not just one day a year at Thanksgiving, but every single day of the year.

The perfect time seemed to present itself last weekend while we were passing out Thanksgiving dinner baskets that Zac had raised money for along with his karate class. We joined other families on the Saturday morning before Thanksgiving to fill the baskets with a very nice, complete dinner, and then split up the baskets to be delivered. We had six baskets to deliver, which to be honest was more than we were expecting, but it turned into a great family time so that Bucky and I together could have a great conversation with Zachary. We talked about how blessed we are and about how much God loves all the people we were helping out with the baskets. He got a glimpse into the lives of some people that are really struggling, but he also saw how some of those people still seemed to be filled to overflowing with a joy that came from deep within their souls. We talked about how we are very thankful for our home and Dad's job and having a car and having plenty of food, but at the same time that those things are not what brings us true joy. The peace and joy that we experience in our daily lives can only come from heaven above. It wasn't so much of a "preachy" sort of talk, just talking and celebrating the many gifts that are ours through Christ Jesus.

As usual, during a time that we were trying to do something to bring a blessing to someone else, we were blessed ourselves by the people that we thought we were going to be helping.

~~Vicki ~~