I know you may have wondered if the Storyteller had stopped telling stories altogether. Or, perhaps you assumed that I am overwhelmed by the all the last-minute edits and “stuff” that will, at last, get Book 1 of “Morgan’s Landing” into your hands.  The latter is true, but since I last posted, my family has experienced tragedy and loss that has kept my heart and mind elsewhere.

My apologies for there not being a First Friday Freebie in November.  Those days were filled with tears and prayers.

Now here we are, the day before Thanksgiving, when so many families will gather together for laughter and feasting and joy. I wanted to make a special effort to encourage you to treasure your Thanksgiving celebration and to take a good, hard look around that table and realize that in the blink of an eye any one of those chairs might be found empty.

Seven years ago (it lacked only about twelve hours, in fact, being on the exact same date) we experienced another great loss.  It is difficult enough to say goodbye to a parent or another loved one who has lived a long and full life, but the blunt trauma of having to release those who are young and vibrant into the arms of God is a different and terrible kind of pain.

I saw the quote in the above photo a few years ago and the truth of it really impacted me.  Grief is exactly that.  Every ounce of the love that you had within you for someone is still there and you have no place to pour it out, to lavish it, to say it, to express it with a kiss and a hug.  You can no longer place the bouquet into their arms and tell them that they are special – that they matter.

While Smuffy and I still have each other and Pookie and her family are still intact, we have all had our hearts torn at this loss. We realize that though we have our own grief, our greatest pain is the realization that the mother, siblings, grandparents and small children of the one who has left our family are suffering something that we cannot even imagine.

Yet, it is time to give thanks.

Laura Ingalls Wilder, in her book, “The Long Winter”, tells of her family’s struggle with isolation and near starvation for eight months in a house in which they would have frozen to death if they hadn’t spent their days binding slough grass into “logs” in order to make it burn in the wood stove for more than just a minute or two.  Their only food was a little grain that her mother managed to portion out in hopes that it would last until train tracks were cleared and supplies could be brought into the town.  When Laura complained one day about having nothing else to eat, Ma corrected her by saying, “We mustn’t complain about what we do have, Laura.”

There will be homes all across our country that will have a Thanksgiving with no turkey and all the trimmings.  There will be homes with lavish festivities where laughter abounds.  There will be homes of both types with an empty chair at the table. 

Yet, it is time to give thanks for what we do have.

Set aside all the family squabbles and, for a moment, look around at each family member and imagine them vanishing from their place at the table.  Give thanks to God for each one who is there. You can come back to Him with all your “whys” on a different day.

The book, “The Landing of the Pilgrims” is taken largely from the diaries of William Bradford, so it is a first-hand, on-the-spot account of what the Puritans of Plymouth colony experienced.  My heart was pierced over and over again by how many times he wrote that they considered themselves “a people blessed”.  Though half the colony died of cold, sickness and starvation during their first winter in their new world, they were still able to say, over and over again, that they considered themselves blessed.  They had survived with the hope that they would thrive again.

I appreciate this poem by Ruth Graham  –

I will lay my whys before Your cross and worship, kneeling,
My mind too numb for thought, my heart beyond all feeling,
And worshiping realize that I,
In knowing You, don’t need a why.

This passage from the Scriptures, written by the prophet Habakkuk, challenges me to reaffirm my faith  –

“Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

It is time to give thanks.  Take a precious inventory of what you do have!

May your family experience blessings, grace and safety during the entire holiday season.  Happy Thanksgiving!