For most of the Thanksgivings in my life, those in which I was old enough to really give thanks, it was easy to follow the words of the hymn, “Count your many blessings.” That’s not the case this year. It’s not that there haven’t been blessings I should count; nor is it that I would not be surprised at “what the Lord hath done.”
Rather, it is that the many blessings have been overwhelmed by grief. The unexpected, accidental death of my oldest sister and hero; followed by the need to be the care provider for my
Compounding these personal events have come devastating fires near two of our previous homes and churches. In the case of one of those fires, an entire town lies in ashes and rubble and many we know and love have lost their homes.
Thanksgiving is a national holiday and right now in the nation I love, partisan bitterness and hatred
So, what kind of Thanksgiving should we have? It cannot be one that tries to ignore the grief! First, that would be impossible and second, it would be dishonest. Yet, on the other hand, no giving of thanks would be unfaithful, as ingratitude toward the God who gave us His Son always is.
For me, this is a year for a Habakkuk Thanksgiving. Habakkuk saw, in the present, rampant injustice and that was hard enough. What his prophetic vision saw in the future was the unspeakable horror of the Babylonian conquest that would bring countless deaths, and the destruction of the Temple of the God he served, let alone of the city in which the Temple stood and the surrounding countryside.
His one consolation was in the very God who showed him this horrific future. God would bring that future, but He would also, through those events, bring mercy and justice. God was all Habakkuk had but God was enough! Could Habakkuk be thankful when he saw the coming devastation of everything upon which life seems to depend? Let Habakkuk answer that question:
Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails,
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold,
and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.
GOD, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer
and makes me tread upon the heights. (Habakkuk 3:17-19 NRSV)
Yes, I’ll have a Thanksgiving!
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Guest writer, Tim Kelley serves as an elder at Littleton Church of Christ.
Tim is one of those Baby Boomers who started out on Howdy Doody and graduated from college with Dustin Hoffman’s “The Graduate.” In 1972, he & Roxanne married—and he’s been a very blessed man ever since! At 11 months old he contracted Polio, but it’s not who he is! Who he is is a servant of Jesus Christ. They have been blessed with four children, three of whom are married and have given them four beautiful grandsons, and two very beautiful granddaughters. For 40 years Tim served as a preaching minister in California. Then they were blessed to be led to this wonderful church family.