Wednesday, November 27, 2013


Getting ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow? You'd better stop a moment and give thanks for Sarah Hale!

Sarah Saved the Day

When you tuck into your turkey, when you salivate over your stuffing and when your pumpkin pie pleases your palate this Thanksgiving day, remember Sarah Hale and give thanks for her, too. For without her, November 28 this year might be just another old peanut butter & jelly sandwich Thursday.

A mother of five, Sarah Hale was a fighter, a “righter” and a writer of wrongs. Born in 1788, she was a woman of great passion. When she encountered injustices (such as slavery), she and her pen argued against them. When she thought there should be educational opportunities for girls and playgrounds for kids, she wrote about it. She was a poet and an author of children's books and biographies as well as the first female magazine editor in the country. And remember "Mary Had a Little Lamb?” That was Sarah.

But back to Thanksgiving. In Sarah's day, New England celebrated the holiday but Southerners didn't; they ignored it out West and most every place else in the country. This bothered Mrs. Hale. A lot. She loved Thanksgiving and felt it was necessary for everyone in the country to enjoy it together, thanking God for his many blessings. So, she started a letter writing campaign, asking politicians to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Her magazine articles implored readers to write letters, too, and one by one the states made it official - in their own states. But no national holiday. Sarah kept going, writing to President Zachary Taylor. No, he said. And then Millard Fillmore. Nope. Franklin Pierce. No, again. James Buchanan. No. There were just too many other, more pressing concerns - arguments over policies, economic issues and war. It seemed the country was in danger of falling apart, but Sarah kept up her quest and wrote again, this time to Abraham Lincoln. And he said…YES! It had taken Sarah 38 years and thousands of letters, but in 1863 President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday - a day for everyone to give thanks to God, together. Sarah Hale, a lover of Thanksgiving – called the mother of Thanksgiving - had literally saved the day.

148 years later, we still need Thanksgiving. We still have concerns. We still argue. Economic issues are everywhere and war still rears its ugly head. But I Thessalonians is also still true when it commands us to "Give thanks in all circumstances." Psalm136:1 admonishes: “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever.” His love endures, He will see us through it all and we are all thankful, together. Thanks for Thanksgiving, Sarah Hale!

 

Wednesday, November 20, 2013


Think about Your Thanks

November is rather a weird time of year. The grass needs to be mowed a couple times more but you have to bundle yourself up to do it, hood, gloves and all. Your neighbor’s Halloween pumpkin is still grinning from his perch on the porch but the woman around the corner has already strung her Christmas lights – and turned them on. Stores are still trying to rid themselves of all remaining orange and black paraphernalia while hawking all the red and green. But just try to buy a pilgrim.

I’m going to risk sounding like a broken record (just using that term dates a person, doesn’t it? You know – those old-timey hard plastic disks that played a catchy tune when you put the needle down, but would repeat the same part over and over if there’s a broken spot? Well that’s me. I’ve said this all before). We tend to skip the grateful and just enjoy the “gimme.” I feel badly each year when we rush to carve our pumpkins, do the trick or treat thing and then run headlong right to trimming our trees (even though I have been known to listen to Christmas music in October) – skipping right over the thanks. I was thrilled when I saw three homemade wooden Thanksgiving decorations in someone’s yard the other day. You don’t see much of that. Does placing a turkey in a window or a pair of pilgrims on the sidewalk mean the owner is thankful? I don’t know, but I do know he or she is at least thinking about it.
And we do need to think about it. We are not naturally a thankful, grateful people. In the Bible we are told to give thanks, commanded to give thanks: Psalm 136:1  “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever.” Psalm 107:15 “Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind…”                                   1 Thessalonians 5:18 “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” If we were innately thankful, we wouldn’t have to be ordered to be so. We wouldn’t have to learn it.

When I was little, if I wanted something or something was given to me, my parents would remind me, “Now, what are the magic words?” They wanted me to say “please” and “thank you” and they wanted me to be thankful. I don’t suppose they thought that making me say those words would automatically make me thankful, but the words' repeated use certainly made me think about it. And besides, use of those polite words helps a person function in polite society (and if you are saying, “”What’s that?” maybe the fact that we don’t insist our children use those “magic words” anymore might be one of the reasons).

A popular November activity on the social media outlet, Facebook, has several of my acquaintances daily posting something for which they are thankful. Family, friends, food, pets, home, church and God are all mentioned. All good things, all blessings and they should never be glossed-over or counted as so “everyday” that they are not worth mentioning. But, as part of the “thinking” about thanks (the word “thank” has its root origins in the word “think”) I love it when people spend some time to ponder “all God’s wonderful deeds for mankind” (see Psalm 107:15 once again). This year my daughter is going through the alphabet, coming up with a blessing for each letter. You could take each letter and praise God for someone you know whose name starts with a,b,c…and so on. Another idea is to pick a color and give thanks for several things God made in that hue (red: apples, leaves, burning bushes in the fall, cherries, strawberries, roses, your friend’s hair, rubies). You get the idea. If we spend enough time thinking we won’t have any trouble thanking. (If you think you’ve thanked Him for just about everything you can think of, what if everything you have was taken away? Could you think of more then?)

God is so creative, so generous, so kind, so loving, His character so rich and full that we will run out of days to thank Him long before we run out of reasons to thank Him.

To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble,
but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.” --Johannes A. Gaertner


 


 

Thursday, November 7, 2013


 
A "blast from the past" (November 2002; an article I wrote for Spring Creek Church's People Matters)
Turkey Talk
Each November I find myself filled with a certain amount of trepidation – all on account of tangling with a turkey. While our family enjoys feasting on that fowl, it can be a bit of a tricky business managing to produce a delicious delicacy rather than a dried-out dud.

So, I went to my trusted friends to seek out their sage advice. How, I queried, do you make a Thanksgiving dinner? Austin said, “First you put a wrapper over it.” (The turkey, I believe he meant.) “You cook it at 30 degrees for an hour; eat it with gravy, vegetables and cauliflower.” After consultation with Bob, however, Austin felt the oven temperature he advised was a little low. “Change it to 50 degrees,” Austin instructed.

On to Samantha, who said the first thing to do was “Go to Grandma’s.” Then, “You take the turkey and s-t-r-e-t-c-h it out, put sauce on it, bake it at 10 degrees for 13 minutes and enjoy it with beef stew and lasagna.”

Hannah starts with pumpkin pie, which you “Kinda bake, or you can buy it at the store.” She’s a proponent of keeping a holiday kitchen cool, so her turkey recipe only takes 5 minutes in a “1 or 2 degree” oven and “you have grease with it.” “Actually,” Hannah confesses, “I don’t really like turkey or pumpkin pie. I just eat candy.”

Kaitlyn doesn’t care for turkey, either, but does have “hot chicken, cooked for 5 minutes at 5 degrees.” “And,” she adds, “We eat hot dogs, too.”

A back-to-the-basics kind of guy, Conner’s first step is to “twist the turkeys’ heads off” followed by 10-60 minutes in the oven (we assume plucking off the feathers is involved somewhere along the way as well). His side dish of choice is potatoes, cooked, if you please.

While these folks are truly my friends, and I love them to pieces, I’m not doing a thing with their advice except to chuckle at it. They are Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd graders whose only culinary expertise involves the spreading of peanut butter and jelly. If I want turkey advice, I need to call the experts.

Similarly, many of us spend way too much time seeking out life advice from so-called “friendly experts” like Drs. Laura, Phil and even Oprah (or Ann or Abby) when the “cure for what ails us” lies right between the pages of God’s Word. Psalm 19 reminds us that “God’s laws are perfect. They protect us, make us wise and give us joy and light.” They are “pure, eternal, just…they warn us away from harm and give success to those who obey them.”

Want a moist, delectable, golden brown bird crowning your Thanksgiving table this year? Ignore my little friends, please! Skip the food poisoning and call the Butterball hotline. Want peace? Love? Wisdom? Joy? Skip the self-help gurus and say with the Psalmist, “Open my eyes to see wonderful things in Your Word.” What a reason to give thanks!

Saturday, November 2, 2013


THINK and THANK

I see it. I want it. I have to have it.”

If you’re a fan of the HGTV hit series “House Hunters” you’ve heard those words, or plenty others like them.

House Hunters follows people on their search to purchase a home. On-camera subjects look at three properties, make comments on each and end up choosing one.

In this particular case, the husband was employed while his wife was still a student. They both wanted the finer things in life—and they wanted them all. Now. Granite countertops in their first home were a necessity and a kitchen island of utmost importance. They couldn’t live without dark cherry  42” cabinets, an open concept floor plan, hardwood floors or a loft. Extended his and her closets, too. And  of course the generous-sized master bedroom must be on the second floor, complete with the most fabulous en suite bath—and all this for their tiny budget. They were perplexed as to why this “affordable” gem couldn’t be found  and ended up spending $100,000 more than what they reasoned they should—all because they would not be satisfied with living within their means.

These folks are not alone in always wanting the biggest and best, needing to have the newest and nicest. Never settling, never compromising, never deferring a want. We are now a society of gotta-have-its. Watch the long lines form when Apple introduces a new iPhone (did all the old phones stop functioning all of a sudden?). A famous celebrity begins wearing an expensive branded item of clothing and soon it becomes required status-wear.

In 1997 I was a computer illiterate (and no, in 2013 I still wouldn’t describe myself anywhere near “tech-savvy”). But I do have more than my share of tech toys. And my closet? While not stuffed with the highest fashion I would say it’s still stuffed. Over-stuffed, even. Did I need everything? Nope, just wanted it.

Listening to those house hunters might be entertaining in a “did-you-hear-what-she-just-said” sort of way, but oh my, it’s convicting, too. When someone on the show laments the single bath status of a property, crying “How can we be expected to live like this?” I am forced to admit I don’t want to “live like that” any longer, either. (“Keep in mind,” I remind myself, “Your parents were thrilled with that little 1957 one bathroom rancher and they raised four children there just fine, thank you very much!”).

We (and by “we,” I mean “I”) need to really think about 1) Who gave us what we have: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights…” (James 1:17); 2) being satisfied with what we have: “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world.” (I Timothy 6:6&7) and then 3) being thankful for what we have: “Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father…”  (Ephesians 5:20). Yes—think...and then thank.