A Month of Thanksgiving

As always, before any Holiday, I really do some soul-searching to figure out how we want to celebrate. I always ask myself, "What do I want to teach my kids about this particular Holiday? What do I want them to learn? How can I get it into their little hearts?". About a month before Thanksgiving we decided to make a paper chain leading up to the actual day. On each link we wrote down things we were thankful for. When we ripped off that link, we were then reminded of those things we thought of and then we prayed and thanked God for them. I was trying to think of something we could do with the link after we ripped it off. Hmmm....the first thing that popped into my head was to make each link into a feather and attach it to a turkey. So..that's what we did! I didn't really have time to come up with anything else! This also gave us a visual thing to look at each day and be reminded to have a thankful heart.












"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful....singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God...giving thanks through Him to God the Father." Col. 3:15-17


After we decided to do the chain link, I thought that maybe it was a little too self-focused. Here we are thinking of all the ways "we" should be thankful and not necessarily thinking of others. Don't get me wrong, we should be thinking of things we are thankful for in order to cultivate a continuous thankful heart, I just think there is more to it! So then we decided to make a Thankfulness calendar. On each day we thought of a person or couple in our lives that we could focus on that day by either praying for them, sending them a note, calling them, or getting them a small gift. The idea was to get the focus off of ourselves and think of others intentionally! The girls had a lot of fun waking up each morning and asking who the "special" person was for the day. It also got me thinking of others more and trying to figure out what we could do to make them feel special. This also gave us some more intentional reasons to keep building relationships with our neighbors!

"I will give thanks with all my heart; I will sing praises to Thee...And give thanks to Thy name for Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth." Psalm 138:1-2

We also read a little bit about the Pilgrims and their journey to freedom in America. The main thing we mentioned to the girls is that they wanted to worship the Lord without any one telling them they couldn't or telling them a certain way to do it. We pointed out that we have abundant blessings like food, a house, clothes, toys, and all our needs met when others around the world and even in our country do not.
Our church, which is AMAZING by the way, handed out a simple meal in a bag. It was a missions focused Sunday and instead of just telling us that we should try and cut back for one of the meals before Thanksgiving, they actually gave it to us! It was rice and beans in a bag with 4 little pieces of dried banana. They encouraged us to also drink water for that meal and whatever money we saved doing that could be given to missions. We did that Thanksgiving Eve and it went really well. The girls actually liked it and didn't complain too much! It was very filling but it also gave us a visual and practical way to see that we can eat simply and survive. We can eat this way more often in order to save money and give some of our abundance away to those that need it more.
Just a side note, I love how the leaders of our church not only challenge us to walk deeper in our relationship with Christ, but they model it also!

"O Lord, Thou are my God; I will exalt Thee, I will give thanks to Thy name; For thou hast worked wonders, plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness." Isaiah 25:1

As I looked back on our month of Thankfulness it felt very full. Full of goodness and blessings. Full of celebration and love. For a few brief moments I wondered if it was all necessary. I didn't want to get caught up in having to do something. I didn't want it to be ritualistic. I wanted it to be authentic. While I may not have taught my kids to "always" have a thankful heart, I hope we have planted a seed towards it. I guess that is what we are called to do right?:) It is always a great reminder to me to be thinking of others, to be thankful in EVERYTHING. To be humbled by how God takes care of us in every way imaginable. It is something I will keep working on!