A Banquet of Tradition and Blessings

"For, after all, put it as we may to ourselves, we are all of us from birth to death guests at a table which we did not spread. The sun, the earth, love, friends, our very breath are parts of the banquet... Shall we think of the day as a chance to come nearer to our Host, and to find out something of Him who has fed us so long?" - Rebecca Harding Davis

On Thursday, November 24, 2011, my family and friends gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving Day in my home.  The assembly seems to change a bit each year, but not the traditions.  As I grow older and continue to succumb to the demands of life, the time-honored way of preparing for the holidays overwhelms me, so this year I decided to order the meal from a local restaurant.  As the day grew ever closer, my loved ones and I kept adding the old traditional favorites to the menu.  I was delighted as each entree was suggested because even though I was tired and didn’t want to cook, it seemed that the thought of not including these special dishes might somehow change the essence, the persona of this special day that had been fashioned by generations before us.

Right on the top of my list of things to give thanks for are the relationships I have with my loved ones.  I often wish I could go back, if even for a day, to the uncomplicated relationships I had with them when I was a child; the time before the disappointments in life and love could steal away joy and plant bitterness.  Even though some relationships are easy and some are complicated, they are all gifts from God and worthy of sustenance, and I am thankful for them.

I put roses in my fountain this Thanksgiving.  The roses are still in full bloom, little blessings that God uses to plant a little bit of heaven in my heart.  The road that leads to eternal life may be rocky, long, and exhausting, but it is lined with these little blessings to encourage and remind me that the banquet he lays out for us on earth; “the sun, the earth, love, friends and our very breath” is just a taste of things yet to come.

"Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end." - Ecclesiastes 3:11