This morning I headed out for my annual Thanksgiving walk.  I started this tradition quite a few years ago… an early morning prayer walk where I count my blessings and spend the entire time in thankfulness before the Lord.  I usually do this on Thanksgiving morning, but since it is going to be raining tomorrow, I decided to go today…

Honestly, I was a little concerned about how it would go this time… 2020 has definitely been a year.

But once I got started, I was reminded of the amazing perspective that intentional thankfulness can bring! 

As I walked and reviewed the incredible goodness and faithfulness of God amidst so many challenges this year, my heart grew and grew with gratitude.  I even had to take an extra lap to have time to say it all!

Yes, it’s amazing what perspective that intentional thankfulness can bring.  Perhaps that is why God tells us, “Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (I Thessalonians 5:18)

I don’t know about you, but over the years I have had to learn to be thankful; it doesn’t come natural to me.  I tend to see what is missing, what lacks, what hurts, what should be different, what needs to be fixed. So, one of the things I am thankful for, is that God has taught me the benefit of being thankful.  Thankfulness is good for us…it brings heavenly perspective and it opens our hearts for even more of God’s goodness to flood in. 

Since I am not given to thankfulness on my own, like I said, God has had to teach me. He has done so in many ways, but every year as Thanksgiving rolls around, and I head out on my walk,

I always think back to four specific Thanksgiving memories that have marked me deeply with a grateful heart…

The first took place in my twenties…

It was 1990 and my heart was raw with the hurt and disappointment of infertility. Marvin and I had been trying for about two years to have a baby.  As a young couple it was a journey we had never even considered taking, and one that we were continually trying to exit.  But no matter how hard we prayed, and what steps we took, we couldn’t seem to find the way out of infertility and into parenthood.  It was a very painful time. 

But as Thanksgiving 1990 approached, we found ourselves in a moment of expectation, thinking this was finally the month for us! We packed the car and headed to Charlotte NC to spend Thanksgiving with his family at his sister’s home…  she and her husband had recently found out they were pregnant and so the family was already excited about their news. 

Being pretty sure we were pregnant too, we were excited to add to the joy.  But, while we were there, it became very apparent that I was not.  And not only that, I got very sick with horrible cramping and throwing up as I often did when my monthly cycle would take place.

So on Thanksgiving Day as the family celebrated together, I was in our room, physically sick and emotionally devastated, asking God, “Why” and wondering when it would ever be our turn.

The next morning as we headed home with heavy hearts, we found ourselves driving through a horrendous thunderstorm.  And as the storm raged all around us, I couldn’t help but think that this storm seemed like what life felt like in this season… our hearts were in such turmoil and it seemed like it would never end. 

But then something really amazing took place…  on the other side of the storm, the most beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky… so beautiful in fact that we pulled over to  take a picture of it.  

And when we got back in the car, we both looked at each other and said the same thing, “It seems like God is saying to trust Him, that this rainbow is His promise that by next Thanksgiving we will have a baby!”

It was a crazy thought really… but one filled with hope and we were so desperate, we grabbed hold of it with the little bit of faith we each had left.

Fast forward through many more months of infertility treatments and much disappointment, our only hope was this promise we believed God had given the November before. 

Which takes me to Thanksgiving memory number 2…

By August of 1991, there didn’t seem to be much hope left.  I had endured 6 cycles of artificial insemination, two surgeries, and now my doctor was saying we needed a break.  I remember that day in his office, getting angry.  How could we take a break?  Thanksgiving was coming and there was no baby in sight.  We had even inquired about adoption, but it seemed that would take years.

During this time, one night we went to a Christian concert.  The theme of the whole evening was centered upon waiting on God with thankful expectation. I wept the entire time; the tears just wouldn’t stop. 

Afterwards though, somehow we ended up having a moment with the leader of the group… we shared our story with him and he looked us straight in the eye and said, “I want you to stop asking God for a baby.  He already has promised you one. So start thanking Him for the baby He promised to give you.”

It was a perspective shift to thankfulness,  and we took it. 

We went home that night and our prayers changed… “God we thank you for the baby You are going to give us.  We don’t know how, but we know what You promised.”

In response, God began to show us His plan! The next week, in a very unique way, He connected us with a home for unwed mothers.  When we shared our story with them, they realized we were the couple they were praying for.  They had a birthmother arriving that week, and they were waiting for God to reveal what couple was to be the parents of her baby.  We were that couple!

Through a flurry of moments over the next two months God put His adoption plan together for a beautiful baby girl who was coming in November.  It wasn’t without its challenges, but it wasn’t without His touch either.  There were so many little things that affirmed this was His doing.  One was that, my birthday is November 5th, the birthmother’s is also November 5th and our baby was due on November 5th…  only God!

She was actually born on November 10th and two days later we brought her home! 

And God is so good, on Thanksgiving two weeks later, we drove to Charlotte again to celebrate with family, and this time, instead of experiencing pain and loss, our family gave us a baby shower on Thanksgiving Day!

So yes, these are 2 big Thanksgiving memories that marked me deeply.  I can’t celebrate Thanksgiving without pondering them… remembering the pain, but also the faith of thanking God for His promises yet to be revealed.  This is a lesson I will never forget… a lesson that continues to show up year after year…

Like it did for Thanksgiving memory #3…

Fast forward through lots of years to 2012 and I found myself in a season that I later called Infertility Round 2… and I often said, it was way worse than Round 1.  No, we weren’t still trying to conceive a baby… God had given us our beautiful daughter and 4 years later blessed us with the adoption of a baby boy as well. O the goodness of God! 

But all these years later, our precious family was broken… and I felt empty.  The emotions I was feeling in many ways mirrored the same ones of the infertility all those years before.

My heart was in so much pain.  The Thanksgiving miracles of 1990 and 1991 both encouraged me and mocked me all at the same time.  How had my precious family gotten to such a place of brokenness?  I just couldn’t understand and make sense of it at all.

And as Thanksgiving approached, I remember thinking, “I don’t have one thing this year to be thankful for.”   It wasn’t true, but it was how I felt. I was in a dark place and I couldn’t find my way out.

But one day, God in His faithfulness called me out.  I was driving down the road mindlessly singing along 10,000 Reasons by Matt Redmon, a song about blessing the Lord for His goodness.  Well in this song, there is a line that says, “10,000 reasons for my heart to sing…”  and as I sang out that line, the Lord broke through my singing and said, “I thought you said you didn’t even have one reason.”

His question definitely got my attention… and from there He began to minister to my heart… reminding me of the lesson He taught me all those years ago… I can thank Him even in the midst of pain, because I know His promises! And from there, He gave me an assignment…

I was to write down 10,000 reasons I was thankful…  

I’ll be honest,  I had to dig deep!  Infertility Round 2 continued for a long time… and there were so  many challenges,  but over the next two years, everyday I wrote down reasons I was thankful…  from the little things to the big things and everything in between, seeking the perspective of intentional thankfulness amidst every struggle.

Which  takes me to Thanksgiving memory #4…

I finally wrote down the 10,000th reason!  And on Thanksgiving 2014 we recorded this video of the book I wrote them in…

What a wonderful memory… what a wonderful reminder… to be thankful  in every circumstance… trusting God’s goodness.

He is trustworthy! He is faithful! He is good!  And I can share with thankfulness today that He has put my family back together in beautiful ways… here is one of my favorite Thanksgiving pictures of us in 2018!   

But now, fast forward some more years and here we are in 2020.  It has been a hard year, no doubt, but I’m so glad I went on my Thanksgiving walk this morning…  so glad God brought these 4 memories to mind as I consider this past year, and so glad He has taught me to be intentionally thankful even when life is hard!

He calls us to be thankful, because without thankfulness we lose our way, we lose our hope, we lose our faith…

But with it, we can set our sights on His promises and His faithfulness and live with full hearts in expectation!

I’m expecting to see His goodness in the coming days… even amidst the hard of now… and I pray you are too!

Happy Thanksgiving friends!