Thanksgiving 2017

I grew up in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, during the 1960's.  It's a small, western Pennsylvania river town.  My Dad lived there most of his life (except a few years in Beaver Falls - after he married my Mom).  It was a good place to grow up.

My schools:

• Fourth Ward Elementary:  grades 1-4
• Thompson Elementary:  grades 5-6
• N.B. Junior High School:  grades 7-9
• N.B. Senior High School:  grades 10-12

I received an excellent education and am grateful to the many teachers who had a positive influence on my life!  

Small-town communities maintain traditions.  Every year, at that time, the protestants would collaborate on a Community Thanksgiving Worship.  It would move from year-to-year among the various churches in town that could hold the crowd.  This service was held at 10:00 AM on Thanksgiving Day - which had to have been terribly inconvenient for the women who were preparing Thanksgiving feasts!  

Most of the time, our family attended;  there may have been a couple of times that I went with just my father.  It was an amazing experience!  I loved the grand pipe organs of some of the big Presbyterian churches.  The architecture of the Lutheran churches impressed me and the liturgical signs of the United Methodists were intriguing.  The singing of traditional Thanksgiving hymns was part of the experience.  Worshiping with our neighbors was wonderful!  I would see other students from my school there with their parents!  Sometimes that sort of surprised me!   :-)

It was a wonderful time of community spirit anchored in our common faith in an Almighty God!  Love and respect permeated the air!  I miss that...

Each year, like you, I reflect on the things I'm thankful for.  Our lists would probably be somewhat similar.  

• My wife!  Debbie is gone at least one day a week to be with her Mom for 24-hours!  It's amazing how much I miss her companionship those days!  We've been friends since 1968 (married for 44 of them).  We've shared lots of joy and some pain together.  She's been patient with me.  We continue to love sharing our lives on a daily basis!  It's hard to comprehend what it will be like next spring when I leave her for months to hike the Appalachian Trail...
• Our children!  We've been texting today about how much we enjoyed Travis' abilities in the kitchen!  He was such a source of pride and joy in our lives!  He blessed us by spending holidays with us well into his adult life!  We miss him terribly.  Troy and Missy have bought a new house;  we're so excited for them!  They live less than ten minutes from us!  They're caught up in lots of improvements on the house as they seek to "make it their own"!  It's such a comfort for us to have Troy close by.  Tracie and Jon live in Connecticut.  We get to see them a bit more now that we're retired, but it's still a long trip.  We're so proud of Jon and his accomplishments in the Navy.  Tracie is an amazing wife and mother.  And Rylie and Coltin are so special to us!  
• Our home!  We've lived in many different parsonages and homes over the years.  Most of them, we were a bit reluctant to put holes in the wall or suggest structural changes, because it didn't really belong to us.  So, you can imagine our joy at now having our OWN HOME!  We are so comfortably snuggled into the hillside in Heron Woods (in Enon Valley).  We're only a couple miles from the farm where Deb grew up!  Four of her sisters and two brothers live minutes away.  Our home is surrounded by tall pines and we overlook two small lakes that are teeming with fish!  
• Our friends!  Although we have not cultivated many close friends, we enjoy a wide circle of caring support that reaches literally around the world!  At times of loss or difficulty, we have been so generously supported in prayer and with other expressions of love and thoughtfulness.  

Both of us were raised in Christian homes and appreciate the tremendous advantages that were ours as a result!  That foundation was so important;  we tried to pass that favor along to our kids!

I've been so favored throughout my life!  I've tried to respond with a generous heart as a result.  I'm so thankful for the freedoms I've enjoyed that came at such a high cost by many in our military!  I will always stand to honor this country and our flag.  My earliest memory is of my Dad taking me to a Veteran's Day parade (when I was three) and teaching me to take off my hat when the flag went by!  It's deeply ingrained in me!

But most of all, I'm thankful for God's grace!  I am so aware of how inadequate I am and how completely undeserving I am of what He has done for me.  I'm continually overwhelmed by His patience and long-suffering!  He should have given up on me long ago, but He still keeps pursuing me and calling me.  I'm forever grateful!  

Although Thanksgiving is not celebrated in China, many of my former students have been texting me with messages over recent hours!  Their innocence, hope, creativity and joy were such a blessing to me!  We've had numerous conversations with them since last night and feel so privileged to have lived and walked among them for three years!  

Even though we've settled in here at Heron Woods, we still have an adventurous spirit!  We're a little anchored right now because of Debbie's participation in caring for her mother, but don't be surprised if someday you hear that we've headed off to some foreign point on another life-adventure under God's grace and guidance.

For now, I'm counting my blessings - naming them one by one.  And I'm GRATEFUL!