Thanksgiving

How was your Thanksgiving? I hope you had a nice day. A day spent with good food, fun with your family, and time considering all you have to be thankful for.

I was talking to a friend last week about their holiday plans, and she told me about all that was going on in preparation - who was upset with who and how stressful the day usually was. As I was praying for them, it really struck me how easy it is to get caught up in the festivities and lose sight of the meaning of the holiday. We often talk about this at Christmas - you know, getting caught up in the hustle and bustle - but not usually about Thanksgiving. But for my friends family, they were so concerned with who was going to bring what dish to the meal and not being able to bring what they wanted to bring, that they couldn't even truly be thankful for the people that they were having the meal for and with. The thing is, that particular friend's family is not experiencing something unique to their family. I had 3 different other friends ask for prayer for their family celebration and the stress usually involved. It just seems so ironic to me that we could get so caught up in having this "perfect" meal and not even enjoy the reason for the meal.

We had a GREAT time at the Kane house. And thanks to one of Bruce's cousins, a time full of expressing thanks for one another. Earlier this year, everyone drew a name of someone in the family that was going to be in Hanford for Thanksgiving(there were 27 in attendance). Then, on Thanksgiving day each person expressed why they were thankful for the person that they drew the name of. It was a meaningful experience and I hope we do it again, because it made everyone focus on the true meaning of the holiday.