Well…our month of thankfulness is officially over. But I don’t want to stop being thankful. So I won’t. Since I only have one official thankful question left to answer, I’ll address that first in this post:
What are some things you appreciate about God? I appreciate that God is Creator. And creative. I appreciate that God is love. Steady and patient. And I appreciate that God works in and through time even though God is eternity.
Now I’ll continue to say that I’m thankful for the ability to read. And to write. And for the many people who have shared their thoughts, lives, and stories through their writing throughout the years. I’m thankful for Brennan Manning and his devotional book Reflections for Ragamuffins. I’m thankful that he is transparent in this faith and that he so often speaks of the grace of God. I’m thankful for an Advent Devotional that I received many years ago. It was a free resource; a mass produced paper back devotional that I picked up at some church I was visiting. This booklet, “The Lord Is Near,” was compiled from the works of Henri Nouwen…another writer whose life and works I’m very thankful for. In fact, a couple of years ago, I gave my dad one Henri Nouwen book per month for an entire year. The collection is downstairs. My dad was very thankful for the gift.
He was also very thankful for my presence tonight, and I was very grateful for my camp training in trust falls. As my mom, dad, and I were walking to the chapel for a Christmas concert at Campbell, my dad tripped and fell. When he rounded the corner of the building, he didn’t see the reflection pool and one of his feet fell into the water. [The pool wasn't lit.] That knocked him off balance and he began stumbling. I looked back to see what was happening and realized he was getting ready to fall. I stepped toward him, got in trust fall position, and did my best to catch him so that he could get his balance and not fall. While I didn’t stop the fall completely, I stopped him from landing on his hands, face, and head, so he only scraped his knee where he hit the ground and nose where his glasses pressed against his face as he pressed against me. I didn’t fall. My trust fall stance kept me from that. I am very thankful. My dad is too.
I’m also very thankful that my mom wasn’t in her closet when it fell tonight. That’s right, friends. Just as my closet fell a few weeks ago, my mom’s closet fell tonight. I thought I’d heard her flip on the light switch in the closet a few minutes earlier, so when I heard the huge crash I bolted off the couch, where I was sitting with my injured dad, and ran to the closet yelling, “Mom! Mom!” I looked in the closet and saw a huge pile of stuff that was high enough to have crushed a human body. When I didn’t hear her respond, I almost started digging, but then I heard her say, “What? What’s happened?” from behind me where she was sitting in her computer chair. Though realizing that her closet had fallen wasn’t a fun realization, it was better than the alternative which was that dad had fallen again.
So…at the end of this 3rd day of December, three days after the month of thankfulness has ended, I will be a thankfulness overachiever and declare that I am very grateful for being trained in trust falls (although I don’t think they were meant to be used in real life, just in trust building games!), being in the right place at the right time, being able to break my dad’s fall, and being reminded just how much I love my parents and how grateful I am that they are in my life.
Good and gracious God, you know how much clutter fills my mind and heart these days. Help me to pay attention to your presence in my life. Help me to look for and find opportunities this Advent to become more aware of how you touch my life each day. May I become evermore a sign of your love and light in this world. Amen. (--prayer by Henri Nouwen)
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