Image by Viewminder (Creative Commons)
Thanksgiving Day 2022
On this day of thanks giving, I am giving thanks for the last year and its challenges.
In August 2021, I was hospitalized with COVID. I was in and out of the hospital over several months. During that time, I lost my ability to walk and my kidney function. After help from my wife and physical therapists, I started walking again. The kidney is different. I remain on dialysis.
In August 2022, our house burned to the ground. I woke up a little early at five o’clock, and started getting ready for dialysis that morning. While I was showering, I smelled something odd: possibly an electrical item that was overheated or burning. I got out of the shower and searched the house for the source of this smell. I woke my wife to help me look. In a few brief minutes, our house was full of smoke, and we knew something was wrong.
We ran out the front door. Kelly called the fire department. We walked around to the side of the house to see if I could pull my car out for dialysis. The garage was in flames. Within fifteen minutes, the house burned down. Our memories from over thirty-three years of marriage were reduced to dust.
Two major life events separated by a year. Two devastating events that meant loss and pain, and struggle. And yet, I am convinced that God remained present and faithful in the midst of both these challenges. I have felt called to live into the difficulty of both these challenges with trust in the God who turns deserts into gardens.
I don’t believe God caused either event. I do believe that God has not abandoned us in the midst of both of these events. He is and remains present.
In dialysis and in the aftereffects of a fire. Dialysis involves four-hour treatments three days a week. These treatments can be exhausting, and some days I come home and sleep the rest of the day. I have to limit certain foods and the amount of liquids I consume in a day. I’d like these difficulties to go away. And yet, as I live into the difficulty, in the limitation, God is and remains present.
The fire offers a completely different set of difficulties. There are the challenges of working with the insurance company, replacing essentials for day-to-day living, and making plans to rebuild. But there are other issues. There are memories of things lost.
Just the other day, it occurred to me that all the letters and cards I had saved throughout my life are gone. Some days Kelly or I will remember something from our life together and suddenly burst into to tears. Gone. Every fragment of our shared story is gone. While this is a reminder that all things will return to dust, it can be a recurring pain while we are still in the midst of the story. As we turn and remember the good things from our life, we also behold: God is and remains present.
The God who called us into life was present in the midst of the traumas and remains present as we walk past the trauma. He is present even as we remember. He created us with the capacity to remember and to make the past present through our engaged memories. This miracle of memory allows us to rehearse the joys of days gone by. It also allows us to feel to the pain of deep loss. For instance, I almost never talk about my dad when speaking publicly because I feel the anguish of his death all over again.
We are bound to people and places in ways we cannot fully understand or untangle. As I turn toward these precious and painful memories, God is and remains present. He sustains me and calls me forward into today. For today is the day of salvation.
Today I will lift thanks up to the God who is and remains present.
Today I look around see the beautiful wife the Lord has given me. She has strengthened me, walked with me literally through the fire, and laughed and cried with me all along the way. Today I rejoice in a family that loves to see one another, loves to laugh hard and often, and loves well all through the hard times. I am giving thanks for friends far and near who enrich my life, teach me, comfort me, provoke me, and help me to rest in the God who is and remains present.
Today I lift up praise and thanks for the millions of strangers who have enriched my life in ways I will never fully know. From the shoes I wear to the car I drive, I enjoy things made by other people. They live lives filled with joys and sorrows, and through their efforts, I have been blessed. I am grateful.
Today I remember those often forgotten in this world: the refugee, the enslaved, the imprisoned, the sick, the dying. God is and remains present. May I never turn from those shadows but remember them in His good and great love. Mercy Lord.
As I walk through days of struggle or days of calm, God is and remains present. My thanksgiving goes up to a loving God who sustains us each moment and is present in each moment. His love envelopes us in the past, future, and present. Our joys are safe in Him. Our pain and loss is safe in Him. In the end, I believe He will make right the real and tangible losses of our world.
Thank you Lord you are worthy of all our praise.
