Surrender

Its Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays, for various reasons.  I love that it falls on a Thursday.  Having a holiday on Thursday makes Wednesday feel like Friday so that when Thursday rolls around my internal clock is delightfully messed up and I feel like its Saturday, but of course it isn't. Then when Friday rolls around it feels like a bonus Friday, even if I have to work.  I am working tomorrow but it doesn't bother me at all. Actually it makes today feel even more special, not part of a four day weekend but a special day.

We are having 10 today around our table ranging in age from 3 to 89.  The turkey is in the oven, pies (pumpkin, apple and mincemeat) are waiting for a knife, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, a vegetable casserole and cranberries.  I am very, very fond of cranberries. My mother tells the story of my first Thanksgiving (I would have been 4 months) where I only ate rolls and cranberries. I can forgo the rolls now but don't get in between me and cranberries!

I love the time with family and I am so looking forward to our house filling up with more bodies more voices the stories of our lives.  I love the moments of prayer, the time to simply thank Abba for all He has given us, not only materially but spiritually as well.  There is a peace to taking the time to reflect and thank from our hearts and with our voices.

I have been thinking about gratitude, thinking about what is entailed in the exercise of gratitude.  I keep coming up with the word surrender, a giving over of myself, my family, my home and all my possessions, holding to all of Abba's blessings with an open hand.  Nothing is permanent in our lives including the breath we take on a regular basis.  There is a peace to knowing, acknowledging a power much greater and higher than we are.  It actually is a peaceful place to be, to rest in Him who loves us with, as Brennan Manning says, a furious longing for us.  I love those two words put together to create a mental picture. We are loved furiously, with abandon to the point His son came and died for us that we can simply be with Abba.

We don't know what the next moment of our lives will bring, tragedy or joy but we can know our Father who will stop at nothing to go after us wherever our decisions take us.  So today I am in a state of surrender, surrender to the love that will not let me go, surrender to a Father whose heart is good, beats for me and every member of my family no matter where they are. Today my thankfulness, gratitude, is couched in surrender.  I am His, He is mine.

Have a happy, blessed Thanksgiving surrendered to His deep, deep love.