It's no secret that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Although I've only spent it once these past 6 years with my biological relatives, I've still managed to celebrate it with family: my adopted grandparents in Cleveland, TN (complete with cookies and movies afterwards when they noticed my homesickness), roommates' families in Memphis and Kennesaw, once on campus, and now here in Buenos Aires, Argentina with the intrepid twenty-one.
This may prove to be my strangest Thanksgiving yet. Turkeys are over $4 a pound (seminarian budget says nope!), the leaves are bright green (sunny and in the 80s tomorrow), and I can assure you there will be no crafty place settings, cornucopias, or (sadly) sparkling cider.
But I can guarantee you that there will be thanksgiving.
There will be thanksgiving for the same reason that a half-starved group of Calvinists set the table (and were uncharacteristically jovial) for two cultures and one week, with nothing but gratitude in their hearts for surviving their first year in a harsh new land.
There will be thanksgiving for the same reason two innocent outsiders sang through the darkest hours of the night in their windowless cell.
I'll stop there for now, because you've already picked up on my dramatic comparison. "Jill, surely you can't be comparing being far from home and a disappointing lack of cider to the trials of the Pilgrims, Paul, and Silas...right?" No...and yes.
I have a ridiculous amount of things and people to be thankful for. Argentina has been a wonderful second home and the people I have shared with this past year will be part of my story forever. I have a family who loves me from afar and a comfy pillow nearby; my stomach is full, the plumbing works, the English class will be cooking an all-American Thanksgiving dinner (minus the turkey), and the seminary guitar is currently in my possession. These are all good things that I can give thanks for.
But...what about the hard days, when the mattress is hard or I feel alone or the guitar is far away and I have more of a lump than a song in my throat? The example of the Pilgrims and my brothers and sisters who have gone before me in Christ remind me that I can still give thanks. They were able to look back through their circumstance and see the footsteps of God walking with them every step of the way and guiding them up to their present moment.
Thankfulness, for them and for me, is not so much having something to give thanks for than knowing someone to give thanks to.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good- His faithful love endures forever.
Forever and constant, on Thanksgiving or any other day of the week, God is good. His faithful love has brought me to The Dalles, Tennessee, Argentina, and back...and I will give thanks.
But...what about the hard days, when the mattress is hard or I feel alone or the guitar is far away and I have more of a lump than a song in my throat? The example of the Pilgrims and my brothers and sisters who have gone before me in Christ remind me that I can still give thanks. They were able to look back through their circumstance and see the footsteps of God walking with them every step of the way and guiding them up to their present moment.
Thankfulness, for them and for me, is not so much having something to give thanks for than knowing someone to give thanks to.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good- His faithful love endures forever.
Forever and constant, on Thanksgiving or any other day of the week, God is good. His faithful love has brought me to The Dalles, Tennessee, Argentina, and back...and I will give thanks.
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