Random Wednesdays - Thanksgiving

This is my favorite time of the year, even more than Christmas. What could be better than a huge meal with the people you love to kick-off the beginning of all the Christmas fun?! Plus it reminds me to reflect on all the things I'm thankful for, and there are a heavenly PLENTY of them.

Things like:

• family and friends
• living in America, and in particular SW VA
• food, clothes and shelter
• opportunities
• creature comforts that are too many to list
• God's grace, mercy, forgiveness, peace, comfort, joy, hope... the list of blessings that coming from knowing Christ Jesus are too many to list!

Look Ma, no NG tube!

Something else I'm VERY thankful for, and not just on Thanksgiving day but EVERY day, is good health. Some of y'all know this is a BIG one for me considering that I spent back-to-back Thanksgivings recovering from surgery. The first one (2007) was spent IN the hospital with a nasogastric tube (aka a hose up your nose). The next year (2008) I was released one day before Thanksgiving. Even though I had NO appetite, at least I wasn't in a hospital bed!

Some of the things that blessed me to no end during that time was the outpouring of love, prayers and help from my family and friends. We always had something good to eat, and lots of my sweet friends were sensitive to my queasy stomach and brought things they knew I would enjoy. My girlfriends would take me out for car rides so I could get out of the house. My sister Janet took me to run errands, and she and my bff Susan Lower decorated my house and put up my tree BOTH years, and that was a blessing beyond measure.

I learned a lot of lessons during that time, and I do mean a LOT, but one of them that really stuck is the power of the pen. Oh my gosh, I got SO many cards and notes during that time! That was one of the biggest encouragements, and nothing was better than walking to the mailbox (which was sometimes my exercise for the day) and finding a note from a friend. They seemed to miraculously come on a day when I was feeling down and convinced my crazy health-rollercoaster would never end. Note-writing seems to be a lost art in our world of electronic communication (which you know I LOVE) but there is something about a handwritten note. It can often seem like an insignificant thing to do for someone, but it's something the Lord can use it to speak to their heart.

So I keep a stash of note cards and stamps in my desk and I try to send notes to people as the Lord lays them on my heart. I go through periods where I'm pretty good, but this fall I've been a little lax. As I was praying for my friends who've lost family members in the last year, the Lord reminded me that their hurt will be particularly deep this year. Then I thought of friends who have had other losses like jobs and relationships. And some of my friends are just plain HURTING. Would they like to know that I'm praying for them and remembering that this Thanksgiving and Christmas might not be as easy to celebrate?

Team Stilwell

People all around us are hurting and needy, so one thing we're doing as a family Thanksgiving day is running in the Roanoke Rescue Mission's Drumstick Dash. (Actually, it won't be as much running as it will be powerwalking interspersed with an occasional jog!) This is one of their biggest fundraisers and helps the Rescue Mission do what it does best - reach out to the less fortunate. It was SO much fun last year and we saw lots of folks we knew, so we're making it a family tradition - as long as nobody is in the hospital!