The Lovely Life of Thanksgiving
By: Anastasia Bibawy
The cooking has begun, and the scent of the big bird in the oven wafts throughout the cabin we’ve rented as my siblings and I are bent over a puzzle that the owners provided for our entertainment. After driving eight hours over Ohio’s flat land to the misty North Carolinian Blue Ridge Mountains, this getaway is especially sweet.
Its sweetness lies in good old-fashioned family time in the midst of God’s nature and the peaceful escape - the chance to rest. Does it get any better than this? Is there any more to be thankful for? Of course, it's very easy to be thankful in this haven of family, food, and nature.
In recent months, I encountered a different form of thankfulness. All the children I met who have close to no material things, look up at me with adoring eyes when I give them something as simple as a sticker or a few kind words. If someone had given me the same, I would have laughed and not thought about it twice. They expressed their thanks in a way I’ve never seen. They took my sticker as a treasure never to be tarnished or lost. When they took this tiny token, they took my heart because of their sincere gratefulness. These kids have no way to repay my gift except by their gratitude.
We are the same. We have no way to repay Christ for His incomparable gift. No matter how successful or smart or even holy we become, there is no way to repay Him for His sacrifice. The only thing we can do now is to thank Him.
Our church recognizes this as every ritual and liturgy begins with the Thanksgiving Prayer. Additionally, Jesus shows us through Scripture how even He lived a life of thankfulness as He acknowledged the Father in heaven before multiplying the five loaves and two fish, when His prayer was answered when raising Lazarus from death, and before breaking bread at the Last Supper, just to name a few. Jesus gave the perfect example of thanksgiving and then died on the cross. He gave thanks to God knowing what was to come - suffering and unbearable torture for Him and Him alone.
We can’t live a life of thanksgiving without the cross because that is the one thing we can never return, yet that is the one thing that God wants us to be thankful for.
God’s great work of salvation, the gospel, the paschal mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection is the sweet good news that defines our purpose on earth and our final destiny - heaven. To be savored along the way are the lesser yet no-less beautiful things, like Thanksgiving feasts, precious family and friends, and the amazing world He designed for us.
How do we give gratitude to God? Do we wait for the unified reciting of the Thanksgiving prayer? Do we wake up in the morning and thank God that we’re still breathing? Do we thank Him that we can still pray freely? Do we thank the Lord for how the sun shines or the simple joys of our everyday life? How often do we thank Him? These questions could go on forever because the amount we have to give thanks for is limitless. There is no end.
His mercies are new every morning. We must thank our Lord forever and ever, for how lovely it is to live a life of thanksgiving.
"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks." - (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)