Giving Thanks

The day-before-Thanksgiving preparations have been going full-board at our house today. There are pumpkin pies on the baker's rack and some really gorgeous homemade rolls and loaves on the counter. The fridge is stuffed with food just waiting for tomorrow's feast, and the whole house just smells incredible.

And though I'm looking forward to that delightfully painful "I ate way too much" feeling tomorrow afternoon, that's not what really excites me this Thanksgiving. My heart is too busy feeling this warm, almost overwhelming gratitude to the Lord for his extraordinary blessings.

God has taken us on such an incredible journey this past year! I'm thankful for our new home in a new town serving a new church family. I really, really love it here. I love the change in seasons. I love our home on the hill, and I love to look out the windows at the surrounding woods. I love the little community of Warrenton -- its charm and quirky personality -- and I love how close we are to so many wonders on the east coast. I'm thankful for new friends... wait, that's not quite right. I'm thankful for so many friends that have become like family. I really feel right at home, and so many people have been so welcoming and loving.

But the changes of this past year go so far beyond what everyone can see on the outside; God has also been busy molding and shaping me on the inside. It's been painful... at times very painful. Yet it's been wonderful as well. I think we know God better in the darker valleys than we do on the triumphant mountains. It's in our weakness -- when nothing is left, when we're empty, when we're vulnerable and broken and powerless -- that God's power and grace pours through in such abundance. So I'm grateful for the challenges and the changes. As James says, I'm counting it a joy to have encountered trials because they have produced in me a perseverance, born in a renewed intimacy with my Father, that's continuing to refine and complete me according to his design.

I'm also thankful for the ongoing challenges and the difficulties that await in the year ahead. As I shared with the folks at Hope, healing can be a slow journey and unrequested forgiveness is always a one-way process that just feels unsatisfying and unfinished. Even though I've had some powerful milestones in the journey, the truth is that there are still pockets of my soul that ache from the cruelty of a handful of people. But I'm coming to realize that those people are either blind to the damage they've done, or else they're too proud to seek resolution. Perhaps they even feel justified or vindicated in some way. But working through this has given me a better understanding of God and his grace. How many millions of times does he face this same unfinished sorrow every day? We break his heart and are numb to the tears of heaven because we're blind or proud or even simply too busy to care. So I'm thankful for the heartache because in it I'm learning to be a better man. I'm even beginning to echo the heart of Joseph in actually celebrating the Lord's using bad things to bring about good results. (Of course, I'm especially glad that the heartache has faded with each passing month, being replaced with compassion and joy.)

There are other challenges awaiting: the unknown journey of my mother's cancer, the challenges of shepherding Hope as we seek to become totally available to God and passionate about reaching others with the news of his love, the daily ups and downs of raising teenagers and beginning to let them spread their wings, the personal task of nurturing what God has begun in my soul be being totally open to the Breath of Heaven, and so much more. Even for these I am thankful, knowing that God will be with me every step of the way.

Perhaps the most powerful, emotional thing that occupies my thoughts this Thanksgiving is my gratitude for some really wonderful friends who have walked the journey of this past year with us. I savor the sweetness of their companionship, their friendship, their accountability, their encouragement, their perspective, and their love. Watching fight nights while Dan made funny voices for the combatants, exchanging e-mails and notes of friendship, praying together and seeking God's compassion for others, sharing a beer and Monday Night Football, laughing so hard that my sides hurt at Crossings staff meetings, a night of Italian food and jazz, knowing that I could pick up the phone at any moment and find words of comfort and love waiting for me... it's been amazing. And the "handoff" of friendships from Arizona to Virginia has truly blown me away. Being welcomed to actually live in other people's homes or being invited to other families' dinners while my own wife and children were still thousands of miles away, sharing coffee with other pastors who really understand the marvels of God's grace, becoming part of the Tres Dias community (and having one of the most incredible experiences of my life!), getting little notes of encouragement, zipping up to New York for a play or down to Culpeper for dinner together, laughter and tears and the "realness" of just sharing life with people I've only known for a few months. I honestly don't know how people get by in this world without the fellowship of God's people!

And the more I write, the more my heart swells with thanksgiving. God's mercies are new every day. His grace is still amazing. For family, for friends, for patient children and a superheroic, wonderful, faithful, loving, gracious, amazing wife... Lord, I love you. I am so undeserving, yet so blessed!

Happy Thanksgiving!