circa 2020

Eighteen months ago, I had knee surgery that was supposed to be “no big deal.” The average recovery time was under 6 weeks; my doctor was confident that I’d be out of pain and fully mobile in plenty of time for the epic Family Summer Vacay we had planned.

Hobbling from the car to the rim of the Grand Canyon and back, limping around the square in Santa Fe, and sitting out Disneyland so everyone else could go and have fun, I felt less than charitable toward that doctor and his sunny prognosis. It took six months for me to be able to take steps without wincing, and another six months for the swelling to completely subside.

But I’ve received an ongoing gift that could only have emerged from the excruciatingly slow slog back to mobility: I can’t walk across a room, make a bed, or climb the stairs without gratitude flooding my heart and prompting a “thank you, Lord” prayer.

That is only the latest example of a pattern that I can trace all the way back through my life: I am most thankful for those gifts I have spent time missing.

Food illustrates my point nicely. In early adulthood, I hop-scotched around the world quite a bit. During a semester in Paris, when I ate camembert and baguette as subsistence rations ($20 a week didn’t go far, even in 1989), I missed peanut butter so much it was embarrassing. Yes, peanut butter! Consequently, for years afterward, a pb & j made me unreasonably thankful.

When I lived in England, it was Tex-Mex I missed… and a pilgrimage to the “Texas Embassy” restaurant in London (there really is such a thing) made me so grateful that it was worth the day-long pilgrimage from Cambridge.

These days, opening a Christmas package from a British friend and finding fruitcake with marzipan evokes similarly profound gratitude in my wistful Texan heart. (Joan, that was a hint… 😊)

Thanksgiving 2020, like 2020 generally, presents us with a unique situation. This holiday, centered around gratitude, will inevitably taste bittersweet because of all that is missing from our usual routines. But it occurs to me that that very phrase – “all that is missing” – can be a catalyst for our most profoundly thankful Thanksgiving ever:

As we intentionally name those aspects of this year’s celebration that cause grief because of lack, our naming can catalyze both retro-active and pro-active gratitude… We miss those things because we’ve had those things! Thank God! And though we are missing those things this year, we will be SO much more grateful for them when we have them again next year! Thank God!

Though each of us is bound to have a unique list of things for which we may be uniquely thankful because of lack this year, here are a few Universally Applicable Gratitude Items for which 2020 has taught us to give thanks:

• Toilet paper – who knew how wonderful it was, especially in quantity?
• School – when, in the USA, have children envied other children who “got to go to school” like they do now?
• People – especially the bottom half of their faces – so dear! 
• Technology – it’s no substitute for people, but it’s at least given us the chance to see the bottom half of faces on-screen…

Quarantine-absentees, travel-ban sequestration, abbreviated college football seasons, cabin fever – there are so many gifts of gratitude implicit in the circumstances of Thanksgiving circa 2020. Listing all that we are missing gives us a dazzling view of just how much we can usually take for granted – and that’s a gift. A gift for which we can give thanks this year; a gift for which we can anticipate overwhelming gratitude in the years to come.

Paul has this to say about gratitude:

^“Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray without ceasing, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 

(1 Thessalonians 5:16 – 18)

When we don’t feel like rejoicing, Paul’s words nudge us to see that giving thanks is not an emotional response – it’s an act of obedience. “The will of God in Christ Jesus” for us consists in our giving thanks IN all circumstances (not FOR all circumstances), because we belong to Christ. It is our identity (Christ’s chosen people) not our circumstances (2020…) that makes an attitude of thanks-giving logical

Paul clarifies the distinction in Philippians 4:11 – 13:

“Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. ¹² I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. ¹³ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

The indwelling Christ – not prevailing conditions – keep Paul grateful, contented, able to keep moving forward.

So, our prevailing conditions are not optimum this year. But the indwelling Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever – and the will of God in Christ Jesus is for us to rejoice in gratitude. Therefore, may our Thanksgiving celebrations be uniquely focused on the goodness of our God and the goodness of the gifts God gives – even (especially!) those gifts we are missing this year.