A THANKSGIVING PRAYER

REWIND WINSDAY WISDOM

Where is the leftover turkey? He is sitting on the couch!

That’s me! No Black Friday shopping. No weekend chores. No nothing! Just a big stuffed leftover turkey sitting on the couch sleeping through a TV football game.

Most of us have some Thanksgiving traditions. Some traditions have to be altered through the years. I now realize what my mom wrote about years ago as she shared her Thanksgiving prayer with her family.

“Lord, we know You prepare different tables with different circumstances each day and each year. But at every table, let my cup overflow.”

The rest of this session was written five years ago by my precious daughter, Kala. It closes with my mom’s Thanksgiving prayer. Listen to her words as you reflect on your Thanksgiving blessings.

Eighteen years ago, my mom got a phone call I will never forget: my Granny Bea had passed away during what was supposed to be a routine heart procedure. I will never forget hearing my mom’s side of that conversation.

My heart shattered into a zillion pieces as one of my favorite persons left this earth. My heart has broken every February 25th since. I constantly wonder what she would think about my professor husband or my four kiddos.

I know she’d have lots to say about our current political state, and I’m sad that I didn’t care enough to join in one of those conversations when I was younger. I know she’d be excited about all of her grandchildren’s pursuits and be thrilled for every single one of us, even if we are scattered across the miles.

Gosh, I miss her. And oh, how I wish for more time, more memories, more Thanksgivings and Christmases in Spiro.

The thing is, though, I have been immensely blessed by all of my grandparents. Papa remarried Helen, who became a light in the Blankenship family. And then you have my precious Grandmother Clara Logan, GiGi to my kiddos.

Grandma is the epitome of perseverance during the most difficult times. She became a widow in her twenties, when she had five kids under the age of 6. When I begin to think my life is hard, I’m reminded of GiGi. She has shown me what it means to be faithful and to love big even when it is most hard.

I am so grateful for all of the memories I have with all three of my grandmothers, and I’m particularly thankful that I still have the opportunity to get hugs from Grandma Clara. I’m grateful my kiddos have been able to experience the joy of time with her, baking cookies and singing and having fun. I’m thankful for every single moment.

When I was in Spiro for Granny’s funeral, I stumbled across something she had written many Thanksgivings before. I read it every Thanksgiving now, but I find it applicable to everyday life:

Psalm 95:2
“Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving.”
Psalm 23: 5
“Thou preparest a table before me…my cup overflows.”

These are Granny B’s words:

When I think of my own upbringing – the Thanksgiving as a child when that was one of the three or four days a year that Dad took off from his job as a company man for Peabody Coal Company – I’m reminded of the excitement of the day as we drove toward Grandpa’s house in Hartford, Arkansas.

We always passed people gathered around scalding pots or scraping hogs. As a child, I couldn’t understand why this day –a holiday – was hog-killing day. We killed hogs on other days. This was the day to go to Gramps.

I’m reminded of the love and care lavished on me in my youth, the kind of home I was born into, the community in which I was reared, my Church, Sunday School and singing, the gracious influences I encountered, the examples that were held up before me, the fences that were passed, set to keep me from “wandering away.”

I must indeed feel such gratitude for the memory of my parents, my teachers, my friends, those who wrote the books I’ve been privileged to read through the years, and my husband of 46 years this week. Yet I know that they themselves had it all from Christ. Nothing would have been there if Christ had not come to seek and to save that which was lost.

So, as I crawl out of bed on Thanksgiving morning, I’ll not feel sad that my Holiday tradition has been changed many times since those early years.

In later years, we all went home to Mom and Dad’s. Then, my husband Gerald and my brother Sherman started having football teams good enough to get into the playoffs and they’d often be playing on Thanksgiving – plans stayed in the air. Now, my son Bill is coaching and going through that routine.

So early Thanksgiving morning, I hope to peer out the kitchen window and see that pinkish-orange glow grow brighter and slowly fill the kitchen. A whole new light will be cast on that day.

I’ll repeat, “Thou prepares a table before me. My cup overflows.”

Surely this is God’s message in the gift of a brilliant sunrise that we must not sleep through. Many unexpected blessings are waiting to be discovered around our tables on this day.

Let us be thankful for those who helped us get where we are, for those who are with us now, and for those who are waiting for us where we are going.

LORD, WE KNOW YOU PREPARE DIFFERENT TABLES WITH DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES EACH DAY AND EACH YEAR. BUT AT EVERY TABLE, LET MY CUP OVERFLOW.

I pray your cup overflows with thanksgiving.