Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving week. For an entire week, I fall pensive about the things for which I am thankful. I realize how truly blessed I am and how much joy I have to spread. I feel a bit like the leper who stopped mid-run and turned around to go back and say thank you to the one who healed him, and I wonder why I’ve gone so many steps without feeling compelled to express my gratitude. This year, I want to share just a few of the things on my list (just a few, because I’ve discovered that my list is endless).

I’m thankful for conversations that mean something. True communication is something that most of us take for granted. We waste our words on meaningless small talk and arguments, or we leave things unsaid when we have the ability to honestly express our love for each other. This year (as in so many others), I’ve seen in full relief the freedom, joy, and peace that grow with a new ability to communicate, and I’ve seen the pain and frustration that comes when that ability is stripped away.

I’ve seen a new calm settle over Adam in recent months, and I’m so thankful. I can’t adequately explain how painful it is to watch a child struggle with the frustration that comes when he feels trapped and unable to express his intelligent and functional thoughts. As a mother, you ache with understanding your child’s turmoil. You know that the road to relieving his frustration will be paved with yet more frustration and hard work. Riley used to be so frustrated by her inability to communicate that it would wake her up at night. When she turned a corner with language, a new freedom and calm settled over her. She started sleeping through the night and smiling broad, sparkling grins. Finally Adam has turned his own corner with functional communication. He is interested in knowing names and faces. He is motivated to speak and is working hard, and it’s obvious that his receptive language ability has improved as well. Adam’s extreme and tearful frustration is slowly coming to be replaced with a peace that is obvious and wonderful. I’m so thankful for my children’s voices, for their words, for their ability to communicate their thoughts in meaningful ways. At the table yesterday, Zoe looked at me and said (somewhat introspectively), “Mom, Thanksgiving is all about loving each other and being together with our family.”:)

In the last 5 years of my mom-in-love’s life, we watched as dementia stripped her of the ability to speak intelligibly with those she loved. At first, she struggled to find words, and then she struggled to form sentences, until finally she could only string a few words together in her most lucid moments. It was so painful and frustrating for all of us not to be able to communicate with her in meaningful ways. We missed the sound of her voice, her laughter, her loving, encouraging, and even sometimes silly comments.

My life is filled with the love of friends and family. We laugh and cry together. We sit down and sip coffee and talk over real things, things that matter, the substance of our lives. I’m so thankful for all of those relationships and the real conversation that makes them deep and fulfilling. I’m thankful to truly know and participate in the lives of others. I’m thankful for the ability to express in words what I feel in my heart.

I’m thankful for family, both physical and spiritual. I’ve written before about my family and about how awesome if feels to have more sisters than would’ve been possible were I limited by physical bonds. For the second year, we were invited to share Thanksgiving lunch with some members of our spiritual family, since we were all going to be staying close to home for the holiday. I can’t put into words how wonderful it feels to be able to walk into Roy and Janet’s home and know that they embrace our children and love them just as they are—with all of their challenges and eccentricities. They graciously talked over the musical “masterpieces” Adam pounded out on their piano and even commented that they believe he has some natural musical ability (I think that’s actually quite true). Jesse, their good-natured dog, didn’t seem to mind the girls’ constant attention, even after she was clearly worn out. We sat around their table and talked about real things while the kids watched Polar Express in their living room or sat at the table in their kitchen creating Thanksgiving-themed works of art. It was almost 7 o’clock when we left, and Kevin and I talked about how blessed we felt to be able to find so much comfort and joy there that we lost track of the hour. It seems like God and I have had this conversation for years about what loving is really all about. Or at least, that God has been hard at work refining my heart and challenging me to all the things He has in mind for love. As is always the case, the things He teaches me only bring more and more joy. I can’t put into words the joy I feel to have a family in Christ that’s truly family and not just a set of people we wave to in the church building as we pass. I’m so thankful for family and the inexpressible happiness that comes from knowing that they love you as you are and only wish the best for you in all things. To have that in abundance is more than Kevin or I could ever have imagined.

Roy and Janet

Around the Thanksgiving table

Jesse

I’m thankful for royal moments. I used to call them magical moments…those times you’d like to grab and hold on to and just savor a while. Yesterday, we decorated our Christmas tree. Growing up, decorating the tree was always a wonderful event. I remember that Mom never left her chair. We were so enthusiastic about the decorating that she didn’t have time to get up. She just sat there putting hooks on ornaments and passing them to us in turn, and we all enjoyed finding just the right spot for each one she handed us. For years, our kids have had various issues with this process. I remember when Riley figured out that the ornaments went on the tree but didn’t understand why she wasn’t supposed to take them right back off after she hung them. I remember a time when I had to help Adam put ornaments on the tree hand-over-hand to keep him interested. I remember when each of the kids would hang about five ornaments and then tire of the activity. This year, I never left my chair. My kids were so excited about decorating the tree that I didn’t have time to move. I just sat there, putting hooks on the ornaments and handing them out. They remarked about each ornament. “A bear!” “I made this one in preschool.” “Look Dad, this one is beautiful.” Zoe tried to achieve balance this year, even asking Kevin to lift her so that she could hang a ball at the very top of the tree. Adam still struggles with the fine motor work involved with hanging an ornament on a wire hook, but he sought help with those and came back for more ornaments. I gave him absolutely all of the ones that could be hung without a hook. I had tears in my eyes watching and listening to my kids, and I told Kevin that we’ve never had a more beautiful tree. The girls sat in the floor for the longest time just gazing at the glittering lights and ornaments. Zoe said, “Mom, can we just leave the lights off and keep it like this?”

Look!

Ornaments

Enthusiasm

Help

Team Work

Reaching

In the course of finding my ornaments, I unpacked a pretty glass mosaic tree that really catches the light. It still sits on the dining room table waiting for a place of its own. The girls found it as they were playing. They came to me where I was working in the kitchen and said, “Mom, come see! We found something royal.” Naturally I followed, wondering just what thing they’d describe as something royal. When they gestured to that tree on the table, I saw it through their eyes. It looked “magical”:) sitting there sparkling in the light. The more I’ve thought about their description, the more I have liked it. These moments that I would’ve called magical have truly been gifted by God, the King of heaven and earth. They shine with joy and sparkle with all the promises of eternity. They truly are beautiful because they are royal gifts, immense and undeserved blessings.

I’m so thankful that I’m His. I’m thankful for Christ, for the Holy Spirit, for redemption and transformation. It’s impossible to describe how amazing, fulfilling, and awesome it is to be refined and changed by a loving father, but it’s something I wish for every person that doesn’t know His power and beauty. To be made more like Him is to find more freedom and love and outrageous joy than can ever be had in any other element of human experience. The word thankful is itself inadequate when it comes to describing how He makes me feel. He is the source of my endless list and the reason that I want to become more and more like the leper who returns to give thanks and less like the others who are running too quickly to turn around and utter the words. May God make me a woman who returns every day, even every hour, to say thank you. When I think about it that way, it’s not so surprising that He urges me to give thanks in all circumstances. My thanksgiving just overflows to more and more joy.