NOVEMBER 2013 -
It sounds cliché, but the words fit: What a difference a year makes.
Thanksgiving 2012 was a struggling-to-stand-upright celebration that my little family was all at home at the same table, shell-shocked and grateful.
My boy was a month out from a compound tib-fib fracture, and the wife had just survived a life-threatening perforated ulcer. The daughter and I brined and roasted a turkey, but most of the other items were provided by a steady stream of friends who kept us in soups, chili, casseroles and desserts last fall. We were overrun with food and visits and thoughtfulness that kept a revolving door of teenagers coming to see the boy, who was stuck at home, unable to use his just-earned driver’s license.
Our prayer last Thanksgiving centered on the joy of being out of the hospital, gratitude for health care, the friends who held our hands, provided food, ran errands and sat at bedsides and the one true God who has a plan that we don’t always understand.
Thanksgiving 2013 is a testament to God’s faithfulness, healing, goodness and patience. There’s no way we could have known that it would eventually take three surgeries, two titanium rods, and one year and two days for my boy’s leg to finally heal. There’s no way we could have been prepared for the extended recovery my wife required after her surprise surgery.
But, there’s also no way I could have anticipated how God would use the people in my life, some amazing Christian writers and the book of James to walk me through this year, and I am thankful for every step.
One of two big moments of 2013: Autumn's Gulf baptism
A year of trials has helped me to be more patient, more trusting of God’s plan, more appreciative for my son’s amazing, challenging, inspiring faith and optimism. A year ago, one doctor said he might not ever run again. Today he’s running. This year I am grateful for my wife’s determination and godly support. Last year she was in pain and closer to death than I realized. This year, I am thankful for my daughter’s stubborn, instinctual resolve. This girl watched her brother grab our time and attention for most of the year and, for a while, became her mom’s caregiver rather than the other way around. And, she did it while navigating one of the most difficult passages in life–transitioning from middle school to high school
She never batted an eye. Shoot, she even was baptized in the Gulf of Mexico this year!
This Thanksgiving, it’s not hard at all to lift up a prayer of gratitude.
Today I am thankful for healed bodies, good friends and a faith journey that I never saw coming, but that I cherish now more than ever.
Thank you, God, for bringing us through the past 13 months. You have carried us every step of the way. You have proven yourself to be faithful. You have let me see that, again, as cliché as it may sound: All things really do work together for the good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.
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