Hey Guys! Happy Thanksgiving from Brazil.
We’re really missing being in the U.S. today. For the last several years “The Annual Thanksgiving Outreach” we did as a family at our church always kicked-off the day, the feeling of Fall in the air, watching American Football, pumpkin spice candles burning in the house, topped-off with a huge meal with all our family... man. We’re really missing that today. But instead, that’s all been replaced by warm temperatures, bugs, no football (I actually heard my Dolphins aren’t doing that good this year anyway), only part of our family is here, there’s a candle called “Caribbean Escape” burning in the kitchen and our traditional Thanksgiving meal has been replaced by Mexican Food! That’s right, Mexican. How does that even happen? It’s like somebody decided, “hey, let’s think of the food that will make this holiday the most UN-Thanksgiving-like and lets’s eat that.” “Let’s strip away one more thing that makes this holiday what it was meant to be (turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, green beans, mashed potatoes and biscuits) and let’s serve Mexican Food to the family.” Really? Mexican? I’m not making this up, folks. When I heard that was what we were eating I was less than thankful... it actually made me want to cry.
But, besides that... “we’re thankful.” Really, we are. I was reading my Bible this morning and was noticing all the times Paul mentioned (in his letters to the churches) about how God called them before the foundation of the earth and predestined them to be sons of God. And, the more I think about how God did the same with us, that makes me thankful. To think that I was literally dead in my trespasses and sins, and that Jesus left Heaven to die in my place... that makes me thankful. It’s something we’ve heard all our lives but for some reason it’s more real to me today than ever. We’re also thankful and honored that God called us to represent Him and the Gospel here in Brazil. I know I was just whining about the lack of turkey and all the “fixins” that we usually enjoy on this day, but I wouldn’t trade all the turkey in the world for being right here, right now. Thank you for calling us to Brazil, Jesus.
We have this tradition (as many of you do this time of year) where we go around the room and have everyone say one thing they’re thankful for on Thanksgiving. We’ll do it later today as a family but on Monday Night, at our Monday Night Outreach, Brad was explaining to all the people there about the Thanksgiving holiday that we (the Americans) would be celebrating today and he decided to have everyone, there at the meeting, give one thing they were thankful for (just like we do as a family every Thanksgiving). One by one everyone stood and boldly proclaimed what they were the most thankful for. There were a lot of “family”, “God” and “Jesus” responses... whether they were really thankful for those things or they were just copying what the other person said, we’ll never know. But it was moving along really good until it got to our 11 year old daughter Ana. That’s when the breakdown occurred. She literally stood there with her mouth open and said, “uuuuuuuuu daaaaaaaaa oh uuuuuuuh???! Really? You’re gonna stand there and not be able to come up with one thing you’re thankful for? Seriously? At least copy what someone else said you dork! (Sorry, that’s sounds harsh, huh? We didn’t actually say it... I’m just letting you know what we were thinking.) Then that’s when time “officially stood still” and the crickets began chirping. People began to age right before our very eyes as everyone awaited Ana’s response. Duhhhhhhh ooh uuuuuuuh... it never came. Then finally the next person in the row put us all out of our misery and said what they were thankful for so that the wheels of progress could continue moving again. “Thank you,” random person sitting next to my daughter!
That’s very frustrating as a parent, isn’t it? When you’ve done everything you can to provide for your kids and then they stand there in front of everyone and they can’t say at least one thing they’re thankful for! Seriously? But we can’t be too quick to judge our kids when they do that to us. We need to look at our own lives. How many times have we done that to God? Look at how much He’s done for us but at the first sign of tough times (or if we just get a glimpse of something that’s hard in our life) we mysteriously forget about all the good stuff and become these unthankful, ungrateful spoiled little kids who can’t think of anything good to say about our lives. Lord, forgive us.
But God is still faithful to us in spite of our unthankfulness. He’s still loving to us, in spite of our ungratefulness. Thank you for your long-suffering toward us God.
Back to Ana (nothing like throwing your daughter under the bus publicly on Thanksgiving, haha). We didn’t want to discipline her too harshly (it’s that whole reaping what you sow thing... and we don’t want God dealing harshly with us when we mess up) but we did want to try and help her. We’re constantly trying to cultivate a thankful heart in our kids which is hard because we’re all sinful people, even as kids. So we had her write 30 things she was thankful for (and she couldn’t put family, God or Jesus down on the paper). The one thing that I noticed (besides the fact that she’s a horrible speller) is that when she really thought about it she had a lot to be thankful for. Just like us: )
Viva la Mexico,
Jim, MJ and all the Dunn Kids
No comments:
Post a Comment