Thanksgiving Tree

 Recently with the help of my Thursday afternoon, Anglia Loop, ladies bible study I've been reading the gratitude book of all gratitude books and it's called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. And even though she spells her name Ann without an E she is still the kind of writer that makes you dig deep into your mind and heart forcing you, the reader, to try to make sense of every word that bleeds from her pen. 

I could instantly relate to her. Plunged into tragedy as a child, at a time when life should have been ribbons and flower crowns and tree swings and clean cotton sheets blowing in the small town country winds to a mother of six moving upstream while homeschooling her sweet school of little fish.  

 

 Instantly, I fell in love with her heart's song of thankfulness and have begun writing my own list of a thousand gifts. They are everywhere and in these subtle recognitions I am seeing Him , finding Him, feeling Him, praying to Him, searching for Him, singing to Him, loving Him, crying to Him, thanking Him and I know with the strength and the faith of the mighty mustard seed that He hears me, smiles with and at me, cries with and for me, sings back to me, searches for me, looks at me and most importantly loves me. 

We are a novice homeschooling family but we are making great strides as the vocation of not only wife and mother but homeschooler start to sink in. As a dear friend once said to me "This is your season." Life has many seasons. And so it goes for schooling our children at home. This is OUR SEASON! Our season of selfless sacrifice, of discovery, of belief in myself perhaps for the first time in my 33 years, of tear stained faces, of belly laughs, of monster roars, of I am sorry, of defeated hands in the air, of 9 year old girl eye rolls, of I can do this, of I don't want to do this, of what am I doing, of understanding that my life is not my own, of understanding that my children's lives are not mine or my husbands. This is our season of the Cross. The beautiful, rugged, dirty, bloody, heavy, sorrowful cross and I have chosen to carry it with Him for without it there is no Resurrection. 

 Thanksgiving has rolled around and with the speed comparable to that of a child who has just heard his mother yell, Ice Cream!!!! Thanksgiving, is the holiday that is passed up before we even have a chance to watch the annual, and my favorite, Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie. A holiday that has been tragically overlooked and saturated with department store sales and Christmas music. 

 I wanted to find a way to bring this month to a screeching halt like metal on tracks. I wanted to find a way to give thanks for the present moment and to share this appreciation with my children. I wanted to find a way to concretely applaud Christ's love in the here and now, in our lives and not the idea of it. I wanted to find a way to express outwardly our gratitude as a family for all of the microscopic showers of God's abundant blessings in our lives this last year. What I found was The Thanksgiving Tree! 

  We gathered the branches from mother nature on a cold, dark, November evening and brought them inside. Grabbing our vase we each took turns strategically cramming in and staging the branches inside. We printed out leaves with scripture that took me back to my Baptist years, cut them out, punctured them, snipped thread, ran the thread through the holes, tied knots and lovingly wrote on the back of the leaves the things we are grateful for. A pajama soft, silk, easter egg colored, green ribbon was lastly something Gracie designed to place on our Thanksgiving pitcher of love and more love. 

 We have chosen to stay in the moment; to be present to one another. Thanksgiving will come and go and the hustle and bustle of Advent and Christmas commercialism will be on our doorstep even bolder then it already is but our Tree of Thanksgiving  will serve as our reminder that thankfulness is the greatest gift and prayer we can give to not only one another but to our Heavenly Father. 

 Thanks be to God ~