"For What we are about to receive, may God make us truly grateful." The prayer that has been droned for centuries by devout and debauched alike comes with a curious irony. How many times it has been born out of a distinct lack of desire for any kind of gratitude, one may not even count, and those who have said it out of some formulaic rule passed on by their ancestors are even more numerous.

          And yet, as I sit here after a lovely day, I realize again how much I have need of this ancient prayer. May God make me truly grateful indeed.  My brothers are all about their various tasks except for Benaiah. He sits on the rug complaining about how sleepy he is after eating way too much pie, and playing a satisfying game of clue during which Tobias creamed us all. Jedidiah talks to himself over a bit of evening work in the now forsaken dining room, and somewhere upstairs, Elliot and Daddy plug away at something or other. I am minded of how grateful I am for my men.

      Or, at least, how grateful I ought to be. I have another wonderful brother down in Florida who plans to visit for Christmas, and of course I must not forget the little man brought forth by my sister.

Elliot with nephew Jayden

 What richness, what inextricable blessing, and yet the time is not far gone when I complained about the sheer number of tall, short-haired individuals stalking about the premises, or bemoaned the fact that God did not see fit to give me a little sister.

     I have five wonderful brothers, a great father, and an adorable nephew, and yet I complain about my family. May God make me truly grateful.

       I made five pies for our family Thanksgiving this year. Five wonderful pies....almost. The Blueberry pie came running out of its crust when we cut it open, and I found myself finding trouble enjoying my dessert because I was annoyed with how that one pie came out. How miserable we make ourselves when we refuse to be grateful for what we do have and pine for what we don't. As C.S. Lewis would say, we miss out on the good right before us in pining for the good that we do not have. Ah, may God make me truly grateful.

         My family and I were cooking in the kitchen this morning. It was a lovely time we had, but my thoughts were anything but grateful. Somebody hadn't planned ahead. Ingredients we missing. One person refused to get up from his marbles and help wash dishes I needed, another individual washed the dishes and then corralled them for his own use.
        Another individual proclaimed he was going on strike after preparing most of the apples for the apple pie, leaving me to do the last two with no further explanation and not the slightest bit of an apology.
      As I write now, I'm laughing over it, but I was curiously blinded to the humor of the situation at the time.

   


God was good and granted me a more gracious spirit as the day progressed. As I sat there with my little nephew at my place right  at the commencement of dinner, I was granted a glimpse of what it means to be truly grateful.

      "For what we have already received, may God make us truly grateful."  I whispered, and my heart said amen. To be truly grateful for what has been granted us from above, is to experience the best of joys we can encounter in this world. A grateful heart is a satisfied heart. A happy and contented heart. It is a heart that soars for the skies while remaining tethered to the earth. Gratefulness is the lifeline. The bridge between the infinite and the finite. When I am grateful, I sup with angels while laughing with sinners. I can hate my sin, while loving my life. Oh may God make me truly Grateful.

     There was a lovely sunset this evening, flinging its cloak of fiery gold, and tropical coral across the autumn blue sky. The sky is beautiful in the face of great evil perpetrated by man, in the face of untenable sorrow experienced by many.

     Is it cold, cynical, unfeeling? If nature could be called such, I think not. If nature had feelings, I would call it grateful. Grateful for what there is. I'd like to imagine that if the earth were stripped of all its greenery it would still deck the sky in its bravest colors. Perhaps as a sign of defiance, perhaps a signal for hope, but more as a symbol of gratitude for the beauty it still possessed, instead of hiding it away out of longing for that which it had lost. If, of course, it worked like that.
As for me, I'll return to my pies, my brothers, my kitchen, and my sunset, and lift a prayer of thanks to a great God who has given me so much. Not out of a callous disregard for the sufferings of others, but out of a warmth of spirit for the goodness that is yet before me. Only when I am most contented, do I have the resources and ability to grant true help to the suffering, to bind up the wounds of the bleeding, and comfort the broken-hearted. May God make me truly Grateful.

       
    "When you say hill," says the red queen to Alice in Through the Looking Glass  "I've seen mountains that would make this hill look like a valley."

Very sensibly, Alice refutes this bit of nonsense with a simple piece of common sense we could all stand to remember, "A hill can't be a valley, you know."

     Ah, how right she was, how many times do we make ourselves miserable with comparisons when we forget that the hill we have is still a hill, and a good one too?


Our autumn foliage appears drab in comparison to the vibrant hills of New Hampshire, but look at it, it's beautiful isn't it? Beautiful even if there are trees in other places that are more glorious than these. This, my friends, is the beauty set before me, and I mean to enjoy every bit of it. Call me simplistic if you will, call me vulgar if you dare, call me uneducated if it makes you happy. This is my lot, and the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places, indeed, my inheritance is beautiful.

      "Sing praises to the Lord, you His godly ones, and give thanks to His holy name. For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning....You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever."

            He is good, and I am convinced that whatever my lot may be in life, I will never be without the blessings of the Almighty, and for that, my friends, may God make me truly grateful.

        I'm going to share with you one of my most favorite thanksgiving hymns in what I consider to be the most lovely tongue of its origin and my most recent ancestry. Nun Danket Alle Gott. Be forewarned, because I love it so much, I'm not going to actually share just the simple hymn with the tune you're all familiar with, I'm posting below the original Bach Cantata....before you close this page in disgust at my antiquated tastes, I have three words for you: Listen To It!

   Just because it was written four-hundred or so years ago doesn't mean it's stiff, stodgy, or stuffy. You might actually like it....! At any rate, it's well worth a listen, and at ten minutes, I really can't ask much less of you. :)


 

      So now, with this lovely chorale, I shall take my adeiu and beg all of you not to spend this day sighing for the life you had, the life you wish you had, or the one you hope you'll get. Thanks our dear Lord, what what He has given you, and I guarantee you'll be happier than kings and celebrities and all those sparkly people who we think have it all.

       Happy Thanksgiving!

               ~ Christianna