What follows is a reflection I wrote in 2018, that is fully applicable today. As we sadly experienced, 2020 brought additional grief to all of us. For me, it included the death of my Mother, and our dear brother, Mike Myers. The years following have been little better. In this year, 2023, my Kelley family suffered the loss of several of my cousins and second cousins. In the present moment, two wars rage, killing thousands. Those wars, along with only increasing partisan animosity, have more deeply divided our nation.
What hasn’t changed is the sovereign goodness of the Lord. TK
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For most of the Thanksgivings in my life, those in which I was old enough to really give thanks, it was easy to follow the words of the hymn, “Count Your Blessings.” That’s not the case this year. It’s not that there haven’t been blessings I should count; nor is it that I would not be surprised at “what the Lord hath done.”
Rather, it is that the many blessings have been overwhelmed by grief. The unexpected, accidental death of my oldest sister and hero; followed by the need to be the care provider for my 96-year-old mother; followed by the terminal illness of Roxanne’s brother have overshadowed these many blessings.
Thanksgiving is a national holiday and right now in the nation I love, partisan bitterness and hatred is at a level I have never before seen. Further, evidence grows of deep and wide corruption in the institutions we once trusted. It may be that around many Thanksgiving tables, knives should be withheld, if social media is representative.
So, what kind of Thanksgiving should we have? It cannot be one that tries to ignore the grief! First, that would be impossible and second, it would be dishonest. Yet, on the other hand, no giving of thanks would be unfaithful, as ingratitude toward the God who gave us His Son always is.
For me, this is a year for a Habakkuk Thanksgiving. Habakkuk saw, in his present time, rampant injustice. That was very difficult for him to understand, and he complained and questioned God’s justice. God responded in a prophetic vision in which Habakkuk saw in the future, the unspeakable horror of the Babylonian conquest. It would bring countless deaths, and the destruction of the Temple of the God he served, let alone of the city in which the Temple stood and include the surrounding countryside.
His one consolation was in the very God who showed him this horrific future. God would bring that future, but He would also, through those events, bring mercy and justice. God was all Habakkuk had, but God was enough! Could Habakkuk be thankful when he saw the coming devastation of everything upon which life seems to depend? Let Habakkuk answer that question:
Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails,
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold,
and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
and makes me tread upon the heights. (Habakkuk 3:17-19 NRSV)
Yes, I’ll have a Thanksgiving!