Today I leave for the trip to Memphis to be with my whole immediate family for the Thanksgiving Holiday. This makes me excited for so many different reasons, the main one being that we are all only together about twice a year because we are scattered all throughout the United States.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this trip this year. More so than usual. Our family is a pretty tight knit group. We have been through a lot together, and have the blessing of all walking with the Lord. All my siblings are married, and we have lots of little ones running around as well.
But for this trip and for this visit with each other, God has been stirring something in my heart. He’s been gracious to give me some time to stop and pray about our time together. What I feel like God is saying is that He doesn’t want us to just have Thanksgiving as usual this year. Particularly for me, I want to be slow to speak and quick to serve. I want to be sensitive to what God is doing in my mom and my siblings lives, and I want to be quick to bless and encourage them. . . I want to put my nieces above myself and sit on the floor and play with them as long as possible (even if it is at 7AM) . . . I want to allow God to use our time with each other to be life-giving, and not exhausting and draining.
Because I think there is something really powerful about a united family. I think that you can really see and experience the character of God when a family is submitted to Him . . . when a family honors God together.
So I’m excited to see what God has in store for my family this weekend. I wonder what would happen if, I operate out of a place of expectancy and rest in God and if I am intentional these next couple of days in praying and serving my family members. I think God has huge blessings in store if I will be faithful in this little thing.
I’m not sure what your family situation is like . . . if it is similar to mine or if you might not have family to be with for Thanksgiving. But, I think that God has something unique and special for all of us this week/weekend. I think He has something just for you, whether that be serving someone else a meal on Thursday, inviting someone to be with you and your family, taking the holiday to rest and seek God, or playing outside with the little ones like me. But either way, I hope that you experience God in a new way this Turkey Day, and that it won’t be Thanksgiving as usual for you, but that God will use you to bless someone else this year.
happy happy Turkey day!
(these are me and my nieces – I just had to show them off because they are so stinkin cute!)
Linnae
