Well as I sit down to write this I am a bundle of emotions. You see for the first time in 28 years I am home back in Illinois for more than just the usual visit with "La Famiglia"! Melissa and I are back here for awhile to stay until God moves us out on His next mission and great adventure. It's not if that happens but when and those stories will be for your enjoyment on another day. But in the meantime we are settled in to my parent's lake home on Fox Lake for the time being and care taking it for the winter. I must tell you, even though they have both gone home to the Lord, I feel such an overwhelming presence of them here. Their influence is everywhere in both the house and on the property and I am steeped in the memories of so many past seasons of family events and years of laughter, life lessons, a few tears and lots of grand babies. My thankful quotient keeps rising along with my appreciation for their lives lived with such grace and blessing. As we approach Thanksgiving tomorrow and all of you are rushing about cooking, shopping, packing or traveling, I urge you to slow down a bit and get way to give some thanks in private. In private please! That's right, not through the customary grace at the dinner table hurried through as to satiate the hungry masses drooling over the bounty of food and desserts. That's fine but mostly ceremonial. I mean alone, seeking Him before the day gives way to organized chaos, turkey and football games or should I dare say it, shopping!
If you are planning on going out tomorrow to shop and pander to the endless supply of soul sucking, money grabbing, greedy retailers that have now breached the sanctity of Thanksgiving too, then my friends you simply have your priorities screwed up. Why would you leave the warmth of a family gathering and all it's joy and fellowship to venture out into the dog eat dog world of holiday retail madness. That is an exercise in masochism of the highest order. Let's run down the list shall we? Fights in aisles, trampling over people to the point of death, running over people in parking lots, and shootings, yes shootings. Not to mention, very aggravated petulant retail sales people forced to work on one of the last true holidays on the calendar not totally but almost degraded by the secular masses and their profit first, family second mentality. I have three words for you all. Don't do it! If you are arranging your day around what deals you must absolutely have to buy for your loved one's because their lives are going to be so enriched by the material and temporal possessions of this world, instead of spending time in fellowship and food than I suggest you check yourself immediately and take stock of your life!
I grew up when businesses were closed on Sundays and survived. I grew up when you didn't have computers and the internet to shop, bank, work and conduct your entire life life on and survived. I grew up without smartphones and the ever increasing annoying attention and self dependent crutches they have become. I grew up when all my parent's talked about was the Christmas Season and all the the joy of family time and fellowship. My mom and dad without the modern conveniences of 24 hour a day shopping and blockbuster deals, specials and Black Friday door busters, somehow managed to pull the entire season together and we never noticed any difference! We ate, we laughed, we got together with loved one's and yes we even miraculously had presents to open on Christmas morning without the benefits, neigh strike that, the curse of this sanitary modern world! So, if you think that substituting precious time with loved one's for a dose of UFC retail fight night is what you are desiring then I feel sorry for you. I will look around the room, grab another slice of pumpkin pie, laugh and cry, complain about the Bears and look up and thank my precious Lord for the real gifts of the season. Do it for yourselves but more importantly do it for your children and their children. Time with God, with each other and in thanks and fellowship will better equip you and your families for life's challenges. It will strengthen the tie that binds more than an Ipad will! Be blessed and may God abundantly bless you this most sacred season!
2nd Corinthians 9:6
The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
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