Give Thanks!

In between feast preparations I reflect on the overwhelming bounty God has graced us with. Used to be I'd feel a bit guilty about enjoying enough food to feed a small country in a single sitting. No longer.

There are people across the globe suffering horribly. I and mine are not among them. God calls each of us to care for those less fortunate, each in a different way. For some people that means volunteering to serve the homeless a warm meal on Thanksgiving. For others, it's serving the homed with a scrumptious meal while doing their part throughout the year for those who need help, some in big ways, some in small ways. And for still others, it's caring for people who don't need physical help but do need friends, hospitality, and God's love.

The Bible shows God to be a God of feasts. No, He's not a party animal, He is a master of symbolism. God's grace and unending bounty is obvious in most American's lives. He delights in us realize that. As I reflect on a grace-filled life, starting with a wonderful family of origin, great friends, wonderful churches, good jobs, terrific wife and children and dogs, I also have to look at the things I counted as suffering. Bone disease, bullies, a faulty moral compass that led me to embarrassing and often horrifying actions... and then I realize these things shaped me into the "container" who would and could receive God's individualized grace.

Extrapolating from that, is it such a stretch that the downtrodden are being similarly shaped? Those who believe God can look forward to tremendous grace, sometimes here, sometimes not until eternity. And even within tremendous suffering, grace abounds. I read of a father who, during the typhoon "over there" lost sight of his daughter. In the throng of fleeing people, he was shoved one way and another, right back to his crying daughter. He praised God, seeing not the typhoon but a caring Father.

Those in poverty should not be ashamed; those of us with an embarrassment of riches shouldn't be ashamed either. God give to us all. Whatever we have, whatever we don't, give thanks.