Unearthing Thanks (and a special Audio for You)

Can you see them? The condensation-dripping plastic ziplock bags hanging from the clean dishes rack. And I'm not sure if it's just the frugal missionary kid in me that still washes plastic bags, or the trying-to-go-more-green-girl in me who is sad about too many plastic bags floating in the oceans, but nonetheless, three bags hang drying in the rack beside the Thanksgiving pies.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! I am thankful for you, thankful for these places online where we get to exchange emails, exchange blog posts, and where we get to rekindle flames in our walk with God, in our marriage and family, and in our spheres of influence.

I am thankful for a warm house where the smell of pumpkin and pecan pies wafts buttery and with scents of freshly-ground cloves, cinnamon, and drizzled vanilla extract. I am thankful for tall grown children, climbing the stairs happy after a rare chance to sleep in, and for a slender eight year old  who chirps cheerful welcomes to his older siblings. I am thankful for fresh ground coffee in a scuffed up french press cylinder still oily from yesterday's brew.

From my pie-smelling home (with baked-on unknown browns on my stove top) and drippy plastic re-used bags, know that I bid you a warm Happy Thanksgiving. You are loved and delighted in. You are seen and heard. Your voice and story matters, and the Creator of the world is right beside you.

Feel free to grin along with my husband and I... We were honored to give a Thanksgiving sermon at our church this last Sunday, sitting together on stage, and digging into some of the surprising statistics and benefits of becoming people of gratitude, and seeing where God's ways bring the greatest joy. (Click here to listen online. Sorry, without visuals you are missing a cute photo of Mark as a six year old, and of me as a fifteen year old holding a pet monkey.)

(Next week, we'll finish the last post in this series of Let's Talk about Sex.)

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A Backward's Glance that Will Change Your Trajectory

Miniscule snowflakes drift by sleepily today, while burly college men sprawl around our cherry wood kitchen table with my husband.

Photo: Gabriela, Creative Commons, cc license

Raucous laughter breaks out as they tease each other about the board game in front of them, and I grin quiet and shift more comfortably on my desk behind them. Scouring digital photos from last year, I select a few, inserting them into this year's Christmas letter. The photos trail beside tales, and I can't help but see it.

It's laced throughout the document, and I hear it again and again. And the words just flow it out, this truth that I know but it takes a year's worth of telling to see it so plainly. In a paragraph on page one, it's there in Times New Roman font, "We are overwhelmed by God's gracious care for us and his extravagant kindness." And somehow it's in a paragraph about demolition and destruction, and yet he amazes me with his kind care.

On page two, the line weaves throughout paragraphs about seizures and cancer but once again the lines speak a truth I had known but the seeing it in black and white still takes me by surprise. Because the audacious truth of joy and seeing God's constant love is that the circumstances might surprise us. It's there, and I can't lie. The words reflect and recite it back to me, and nodding, I agree. "That incident reminded us how precious Daniel is to us and gave us an opportunity to experience God's palpable kind love and presence in our lives as we walked the days and weeks that followed."

And those truths that we can know in our heads really do come bursting from our hearts in the hospital rooms, outside the surgical ward, and in the MRI waiting rooms. Because the truth is "While it was an emotional time for our family, we were amazed at the innumerable ways we saw God's kind gifts to us throughout the nine-day hospital stay and the weeks before and after."

Taking a break from revising the family Christmas letter, I joined my daughter in making beef lo mein for supper. College boys had trickled in and out until there was just one left, playing games at the table with my husband on his day off. This former youth group man is now in his thirties and today is his birthday. Six year old Daniel and I frosted the cake, twirling spoons with white frosting across a yellow cake.

"Can I do the sprinkles?" Daniel asked eagerly. He pinched them up a few at a time, concentrating to drop them precisely where he wanted them on the vanilla frosting. Soon, we sang Happy Birthday and gave Brandon his card. Daniel was so excited that he jumped into a version of the song early, and we hurried to catch up to him, starting a second refrain. And our love for this thirty-two year old former teen in our youth program wells up inside us, jumping off the page of our homemade black and white card.

But this love? It pales next to the love that our God has for Brandon, for us, and for you. This kind love and palpable presence leaps off the page to me this year, reading back over our family's news for the Christmas letter. And I never would have guessed that a year with words like seizure, house relocation, house demolition, and cancer could hold so much joy, and uncontainable stories of God's kindness, but it does.

And may I tell you? For we know, brothers and sisters that you are dearly loved by God, and that he has chosen you. In this Thanksgiving week of finding and giving thanks, even a cursory glance backwards will show you trails and tales of God at work in your life. You are dearly, unconditionally, loved.

(Yes, yes, you too.)

Fishnet Stockings and Thanksgiving

Photo credit to Adam Croh, "Walking on the Snow"

I didn't see that she was crying.

It was the ripped fishnet stockings that grabbed my attention. The stumbling young girl in a black mini skirt navigated the slippery snowy sidewalk in heels. A large grapefruit-sized hole bared her right thigh to the freezing morning air.

It was odd to see anyone out this early on quiet city streets, much less beside two sprawling college campuses at seven am on Saturday.

She pulled her thin black sweater tight around her, swiping at her eyes. Then I saw the tears, the red face, and the tall messy bed-hair in back. Wearing no winter jacket and slipping on the icy sidewalk in her heels, she moaned a bit, and then wiped angrily at her face again.

A young girl with signs of possible violence and distress on a freezing winter morning? Something wasn't right.

I hurriedly pulled my car into a side alley, and approached her cautiously, gingerly, not wishing to scare her.

"Hey, are you okay? Do you need help?" I asked gently, speaking from several yards away in an effort to give her space.

"No, I'm fine," she muttered angrily.

"You don't look okay," I stated softly, respectfully. "Do you need help? Want a ride anywhere? Do you need to talk to the police?"

"No, I'm fine. It's not far. I'm just going over there," she pointed across a sports field to some buildings and walked on, clearly avoiding conversation.

Worried for her, I stood there helplessly as she strode across the street, and down the sidewalk out of sight. The cold air bit into me until I pulled out my keys and headed back to the car.

My heart and body shaking, I drove away, praying and aching for this mysterious young woman in ripped fishnet stockings.

Not every woman in distress is as obvious. Some of them mask it behind dull eyes, heavy make up, and tight t-shirts. Anti-human trafficking organizations report that more than 1.2 million children are trafficked each year, and that American rest areas, gas stations, and truck stops bristle with the forced prostitution.

You and me? We can help in surprisingly easy ways. 

This week, as you pack up your families and pies, please take a minute to click print, will you? With your printer and some black ink, you can help fight human trafficking.

Over the river, and through the woods? Print out some posters with the helpful anonymous tip-line and stop in a few road-side rest areas and gas stations, will you? Slipping into the bathroom stalls, tape up posters on as many bathroom doors as you can. 

Fishnet stockings, Thanksgiving green bean casseroles, and these chances to be a hero and save some underage teens (like this man did!). Rescue them? Give them a reason to be thankful too.

Want to read more about this? Check out: (or just click print with me?)
- "Calls in the Dark"
- "Cookies, Milkshakes and Hero Truck Drivers"
- "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"
- "Turkey Travelers: Heroes in Disguise"
- "How to Save a Girl Over Breakfast"
- "Of Brothels and Cameras" 

Thank you, friends. I am so thankful for you, for these chances to get to know you through your blogs or comments, or to have you peek into my heart, and for us to get to chase after God together. Happy Thanksgiving from me to you.

Turkey Travelers: Heroes in Disguise

 

Snow lines my front steps, nestles into my leaf-strewn grass, and clings icily to the streets, creating new adventures for my novice stick-shift-driving skills. Striding into the grocery store, I hear the metal clanging of the season's first Salvation Army bell ringers. Minutes later, the pie tins and pecan pie ingredients in my grocery cart convince me that Thanksgiving is really here.

I spent this summer and fall reading Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts and practicing this new refrain of choosing moment by moment to pause, see, and name God's gifts back to Him --this romancing of us by the Lover of our souls. Suddenly having a single day to pause, focus, and name His gifts seems a natural continuation of this thought. This week, therefore, we slow down. We look and savor, naming, and thanking the Giver.

Thank you, God,
-for a husband who researched and repaired our dishwasher
-for a wonderfully warm house
-for His peace amidst change
-for delightful discussions with teen and toddler children
-for laughter with my husband
-for God's word being alive and active

This week, as you travel for Thanksgiving, join me in being heroes in disguise, will you? Remember the story a few posts ago of a simple phone call that helped bust a thirteen state human trafficking ring and rescued ten minors trapped in prostitution? By printing out and posting a few free posters in rest area bathrooms, and travel center plazas, we can help! Click print and then tape up 1-2 posters in bathrooms on your way to grandma's house this week. Please share this post with everyone you know. Let's be heroes in disguise this Thanksgiving. Thanks.

What about you? What are three things you are thankful for today? Let me know too if you print and post these posters along with me, will you? I'd love to rejoice with you in doing something helpful.