L.L. here. Thinking about Thanksgiving. Remembering a book I just had to read. Because my cousin-in-law (is there such a thing?) did the cover illustration.
The book is about a young woman who braves prairie life to secure government-offered land. I won’t tell you whether she wins or loses the fields, but I will l tell you: she sure faced hard times. Sweltering days. Skin-splitting tasks. Too few pennies. Too many seeds to buy and fences to mend.
She also faced profound isolation at times. Says Hattie, “To keep myself company, I’d taken to conducting chore-time conversations with God. My self-imposed rule was that each conversation must start on a thankful note. Sometimes that kept the discussion from really getting going.”
I love that honesty. She talked to God. She tried to be thankful. Some days this didn’t work out.
Like Hattie, some of us may be facing hard times. Financial concerns, illness, a past that won’t quite settle down. We may be finding it hard to be thankful. I think that’s okay for a season. And I think God welcomes such struggle at His table.
Or maybe some of us can’t relate to Hattie right now. We’re reveling in good times, happy at home and in the world. This too is welcome at the table.
How are you entering this Thanksgiving season? What do you bring to the table this year?
I invite you to join a Thanksgiving Celebration and share with the High Calling Blogs, Seedlings in Stone and Christianity Today communities. Plant a few seeds, mend some fences, or tell us how big and beautiful life feels under the great blue sky.
And we can give thanks together.
Fall Trees Painting by Saima Barkat. Book reference is to Hattie Big Sky, cover illustrated by Jonathan Barkat (just call this the family affair post 
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I love reading books about the old west. The hard work, struggle, can’t-get-a-break events that were everyday life for many of those people put me in awe of their attitudes. They faced hardships with an overcomer’s attitude. Instead of expecting to get something for nothing, they expected to get nothing unless they worked really hard for it. And even then they might get nothing, but they pressed on. Gotta love that spirit.
I give thanks for the Barkat family orchestra that gathers in this place: What a symphony of words, images, color!
Yes… sometimes mustering thanks is hard, hard work. Don’t we often dismiss thankfulness as trite and Pollyannish? But maybe, actually, it is, for us still living in a fallen world, the hardest work of all… to give thanks in all things.
The soul’s cornea has to be fully developed to really *see.*
And the color of these words help me see… like the vibrancy of Saima’s painting, to see the shades and hues and richness of a world blazing with glory.
Wonder, how a piece of art, a collection of letters, can stir a soul… to “get the conversation going” with God and to do the work we’re made for: glorifying God. “Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me” (Ps. 50:23).
That sliver of a painting whets the appetite for more deep colors… and I guess that’s the point.
With God, there’s always more.
Thank you, Barkats, for such a memorable concert.
Will there be an encore? ~warm smile~
All’s grace,
Ann
Lynette… yes, I guess that’s what we call a good exercise in perspective : )
Ann… you bless me. And I promise I’ll show you the rest of the painting this week on Seedlings. Then I think… but it’s just one painting from Saima… and there really is so much more inside her… like the way you say that with God there’s more. Such is the beauty of art and communication and God-Spirit… little glimpses keep calling us inward, onward… to revel or to rest.
i so appreciate your encouragement to gratitude in this post! it is what i strive for each day–to find things for which to be thankful in my everyday life, no matter what is going in the world or in my world. God is good, all the time, and He gives us blessings beyond our imagination… sometimes they’re tiny things like a little flower in a crack in the sidewalk or a long street with all green lights! and sometimes they’re big–like the sun coming up each morning! but we have much for which to be thankful, and I am practicing to be more aware and much more verbal with my thanks!
all the relatives that i have beyond first cousin, and there are not that many, i like to call them just plain “cousin”. saves a lot of fuss and seems endearingly fair in a family kind of way.
i do not usually take the time to be thankful. and i suppose that this time of year is a good reminder of that. each year this time rolls around a little quicker and jabbs me with a stick to wake me from my slumber for a time of remembering to be more thankful for what i have been given.
i am going to take a tip from the story of hattie, and begin a new practice of starting my speaking to God with something to be thankful for. maybe i will even start a thankful list…would that be going to far, you think?
i am thinking that there is a great possibility that being grateful opens a portal to God-Love. zzzzip! a spiritual portal where our spirit can instantly go for a cruise with the Holy Spirit. zoommm…ahhhh what a ride!
happy giving thanks to all !