The Post-Thanksgiving Thanks

Thanksgiving Day has faded into a nearby memory, but all those things we spouted gratefulness for, they are still real tokens of thanks for us today and tomorrow.

And for some, family still lingers about the house, still reminding us of the meal shared around the table.

Maybe Grandpa bustles about in his fuzzy bathrobe, the turkey coma floating like a holy aura around his balding head.

Our day yesterday consisted of morning coffee, and a noontime meal followed by a family naptime. All in all, it was similar to other weekend days.

So what was there to give thanks for?

All of it.

Every moment of bickering over how to tell the Thanksgiving story to a toddler;

the twenty minutes of infant meltdown because all he wanted was a nap;

the dry biscuits slathered in delectable gravy.

All of it.

Thanksgiving is something special, but it should teach us that every day contains something holy enough to give our attention to, whether it’s the rambunctiousness of our children or the blessedness of our friends.

In every aspect, it should give us home, home in a new city or home in the town where we grew up, around everything that is familiar.

We spent our night with friends, with two people who draw pictures for Eliot and play with Isaiah at the park, who enter into worship and spend time with refugees. They are friends who give incredible light, and we sat in their home and I remembered why gratefulness can last past the one holiday of the year marked for it. I remembered it in the sign Hannah made from sticks, because she needed home in a hard season not long ago.

Because our very lives are marked for giving thanks.

So while the masses gather in shopping malls, I will nuzzle myself under the blanket with Eliot, where I play the Big Bad Wolf to his Little Pig. And Travis works on papers and data sets, and we remember the path we’re on.

And we give post-Thanksgiving thanks.