Friday and I’m not at my computer. These days my calendar is more irregular as Dad becomes frail and needs us more than ever. If you have read along in weeks past, our dad has Alzheimer’s and colon cancer and is now on hospice care. The days are winding down. Visits together are measured in moments between sleep and waking. Sweet times with him… He does seem to be waiting these days…on what I’m not sure. On Heaven?
Tag Archives: football
Thanksgiving in America – Family/Friends, Food, Football, Falling Asleep Following Football, Forever Grateful
At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. – Albert Schweitzer
Happy Thanksgiving, y’all! If you’re in the USA, it’s a big day. Lots of food (all favorites you expect/hope to see every year) with those you love crowded around. Then football. Falling asleep from all the turkey.
Dave’s family is in Delaware and most of mine is in Georgia. We’ve had Thanksgivings with both, on sort of a rotation…but not nearly often enough, since we lived overseas for so many years. During that season of our lives, friends became family for us.
The food favorites varied somewhat depending on the family. If you knew us well, you would know which family gathering was that year, just looking at the food below. What are your “must-haves” on Thanksgiving Day?
Better even than the food is the time together with people we love. We can’t always be all together because of distance…but it is a good day spent together…I’m grateful for every memory we’ve made together. So thankful for family – with all its imperfections. God put us together, and I want to always honor that.
If one should give me a dish of sand and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with my eyes, and search for them with my clumsy fingers, and be unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet and sweep through it, and how would it draw to itself the almost invisible particles by the mere power of attraction. The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and as the magnet finds iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessing, only the iron in God’s sand is gold. Henry Ward Beecher
Football!
Football! 
[Sidebar about football and the mad cleanup that follows the huge Thanksgiving meal – this commercial.]
I cherish every memory these images represent and all the other memories not documented here. Thank You, God, for all Your good gifts to us. Your kindness is beyond our imagining.
“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” – Romans 11:36
Look for things to be thankful for: a dear old face at an open door,
The table set for the family meal, a husband’s love that is true as steel.
A cushioned chair that you fixed yourself, your favorite books on a nearby shelf,
A green-hued twilight that sort of glows, the clean, fresh smell of a brier rose.
An old windjammer that you recall beating its way through an April squall,
Its old sides crusted with salty spray, limping in at the close of day.
The lovely odor of lemon peel; a humble man with a flaming zeal
For a worthy cause that he thinks is right; the feeling of warmth on a winter night.
Look for things to be thankful for: a braided rug on your bedroom floor,
A dormer window with curtains drawn, a bluebird singing across the lawn.
So much to be thankful for these days, so much to enjoy and love and praise. – Edna Jaques, Ideals, Vol. 57, #5
Prayers for those of you who have said goodbye, for now, to loved ones this year – thinking especially of our dear friend, Tom Elliff, whose beloved Jeannie went ahead of him to the Lord this summer. May God’s tender presence be a sweet comfort to Tom this Thanksgiving…as he continues to bless his family and serve the Lord.
Photo Credit: Tom Elliff’s Family
Worship Wednesday – All Good Gifts – Thanksgiving Memories
Ideals Magazine – Christmas Edition 2015
5 Organic Ingredients of a Grateful Heart by Steve Graves
VCU International Student Thanksgiving Dinner 2015; Photo Credit: Donna Ange Photography
The First Flush of Fall – in Words & Pictures
Photo Credit: Frances Moon
Last night was the first night in months that I didn’t turn the fan on before going to sleep. It was cool enough without. Instead of the quilt folded at the bottom of the bed, I pulled it up and around me. As lovely as summer was, it is gone, and Fall is rounding the bend.
For almost two decades we lived in North Africa where only two seasons cycled – summer and a blend of spring/winter – hot then a coolish warm; months of dusty dry and then weeks of soaking rain. Over the years, we could distinguish greater nuances in the seasons there, but there was nothing like the Fall we have here. As beautiful as life was there, I missed Fall the most.
As Fall arrives afresh, I look forward to all its glory and spendor. It’s a season that shouts praise to the Creator God. The words and pictures below depict just some of what I love about Fall.
The changing colors of leaves and the Fall flowers and produce.
Photo Credit: Apples by Helen Phillips
American football.
The Country Fairs with all the carnival food, the handmade crafts, the smells of the animals, and the rides and fun times together.
The Fall weather and all it brings with it .
Finally all the cozy yumminess of Fall – MomMom’s pumpkin pie and pumpkin everything else; the glow and wonder of fire pits and fireplaces; sunny afternoon walks together with family and quiet evenings with friends. What are your favorite experiences of Fall?
