“Enter His courts with Thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”
– Psalm 100: 4-5

With Thanksgiving just one week away, this is a great time for us to remember God’s faithfulness and enter His courts with thanksgiving and praise! However, what if you don’t feel like it? How do you enter a time set aside for Thanksgiving when you have just lost a loved one or your job or your marriage? Surely you cannot be expected to give thanks, can you?

My husband comes from a very large family – five boys and two girls. In a blink, we had 19 nieces and nephews and our four children grew up with a lot of fun cousins to play with. Needless to say, Thanksgiving with his family is a very fun, loud event. Early on, we decided to start a “Circle of Thanksgiving” tradition where we all went around this very large family circle expressing what we were thankful for.

At first it was all about the kids as we smiled and giggled through the sweetness of the kids sharing, “I’m thankful for my mommy and daddy” or “I’m thankful for my brother.” As the kids got older, we knew that we needed to model thankfulness from our perspective as adults.

If I’m being honest, at times it was really hard to do.

We felt great hurt and pain as several brothers went through divorces. We wept together as a sister battled leukemia. We cried together as one brother lost everything and filed for bankruptcy. We mourned together as we said goodbye to their dad and our children’s grandfather.

And yet, there was something very right and pure about finding reasons to be thankful even amidst all the pain. We were thankful that we had each other. We were thankful that God promised to walk through this pain with us. We were thankful that we love and serve a God who wants us to bring our sorrow to Him. There was something so healing and freeing about sharing that pain openly and honestly with each other. Being thankful helps set our hearts and minds and souls towards the Lord. There is power in expressing this gratefulness out loud or writing it down and seeing the words on a page as evidence of God’s faithfulness.

One of my favorite traditions is attending Mariners Mission Viejo’s Thanksgiving Eve service because it provides a time for us as a church family to speak out our gratitude and aim our hearts towards thanksgiving and praise as the holiday season begins. Please join me on Wednesday, November 23 at 6:30 p.m. for this special time of keeping our eyes focused on Him, the true giver of all great things!

Susan Hulse
Children’s Ministry Pastor