Sitting
here on Thanksgiving morning, surrounded by my dear family, my nieces
and nephews laughing, moving music by Need to Breathe providing an
emotional background, feeling my baby kicking around inside me, husband
kissing the back of my neck, reading a beautiful birth story and
imagining the moment in a few short months when I first hold my
long-awaited child. Gentle tears of gratefulness stream down my face.
Thank you Jesus. I couldn't be more thankful.
There was espresso-making and egg scrambling.
There was turkey carving and dishes cleaning.
There was storytelling and flute playing.
There were legos and tinker toys and trucks and trains and crayons.
There were puppies.
There was dressing up and tossing in the air and marker sucking and remote controlling and kisses.
There was cuddling.
There was a birthday girl.
There were new iPhones.
There was food and peace and love.
I've always tried to be grateful. Even when life doesn't seem to be going my way, I try to push past the dark moments and find beauty, find thankfulness.
This year, the gratefulness runs deep. Many of the long-awaited dreams, yet-unfulfilled promises, and aching hopes are falling into place. It feels like coming into the light after many battles won in darkness.
And it is the contrast that perhaps makes the light so bright and the thankfulness so rich.
The last two (or three?) Thanksgivings, when we have gone around the table saying one thing we are thankful for in the past year, and one thing we look forward to in the coming year, I have felt empty. The things I WANTED to be thankful for weren't happening. One was the state of my marriage. You'd think you could always say "thanks" for your marriage, your spouse, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. This year, it was first on my list. That was two, going on three years, of battles fought and won (not with each other, but side by side, fighting for our marriage). The aching despair of those years, and those Thanksgivings unable to be grateful for what should have been such a cherished gift, is in stark contrast to the marriage we have today. Thanks to amazing counselors, and hard, hard work on both our parts. So saying "thanks" for my husband is one of the deepest, richest, most satisfying gifts I could imagine this year.
The last oh, most of my life, I've wanted to be a mom. To be pregnant, to birth children, to humbly parent little gifts from God. I married relatively young (twenty one), but with each passing year of marriage, the prospect of children grew more dim. It was always one more year. I would always answer, "maybe in a year or two." And I kept saying it, year after year. It was a hard-fought battle to hold onto what God had promised us (children), and keep diligently pressing forward with what needed to be accomplished to make that possible. This year, the five-month old baby in my womb bounced around the entire Thanksgiving dinner. The sobbing pain of each passing year childless, only made this conception the more joyful. Thanks to an amazing naturopathic doctor, and hard, hard work by both my husband and I paying down mountains of student loan debt. Saying "thanks" for this baby is beyond words.
And there is more... financial stability after nearly a decade of lost jobs and mounting debts... family wholeness after tears and conflict and difficult resolving conversations... physical vitality after years of unexplained exhaustion... jobs and career opportunities after years spent in unstable places...
Because of what we've been through, I know I don't need to have all my prayers answered, all my dreams come true, and all my hopes fulfilled in order to be happy and thankful.
But when things long-awaited fall into place, things fought hard for finally appear, the gratefulness runs so deep it almost aches.
I have trusted Him before. I can trust Him now. I can trust Him when I enter the tunnel again. But oh the beauty of the light for today. So grateful for its warmth and peace and joy.
