Well, we have made it to another turkey day, celebrating the three “F’s”. Family, Food, and Football! This reminds me of a devotional that I did with the family a while ago. I printed out a bunch of pictures, each of which they would sort out into multiple series of three. Each group of three represented an aspect of our daily life. One of these groups was entertainment. There was a picture of a good movie with a Christ centered theme, a bad movie which was some random horror thing, then the third was a movie that was somewhere in the middle, something normal and ok. Another category was reading material. One picture was of a Bible, the second of a common acceptable fiction book, and the third was of something in the horror category again. As the kids sorted through the pictures and put them into their appropriate categories, they began to see the commonality and the differences. The one main group that I used as the primary teaching tool was that of food. There was a picture of a good apple, a bag of potato chips, and a rotten apple core. Now, I am pretty sure that an apple a day will not keep the doctor away indefinitely, but overall, they can be a terrific healthy food. The rotten apple core, on the other hand, would never be an acceptable source of nutrition and likely would make you sick. The bag of potato chips falls somewhere in the middle. The chips are really not healthy at all, but they do taste pretty good and unlike the rotten apple core, they probably will not make a person seriously sick.
This became the topic of discussion, “As we go through our lives, and evaluate them, where do we spend our time?” Do we live completely filled with healthy things? Do we allow a few “rotten” things into our lives? How much or our life is full of potato chips? I would say that a good portion of our lives, unfortunately, is probably spent in potato chip land. They are tasty, they are pretty cheap, they are filling, but are they healthy? No, really not at all. So although they can be acceptable to eat, if someone chooses to eat them, they must do it in a responsible manner. Chips cannot take the place of healthy foods in our diet. This was a reminder that the “bad” is never acceptable, and that frequently the “good” or “ok” things are often the biggest rival to that which is the “best”. This is why a mother says, no chips right now, because, “You are going to spoil your dinner.” We need to be sure that we are not “spoiling” the health of our lives by getting things out of proportion.
So back to family, food, and football. I would say that these can certainly be good things, but are they really the proper focus of the day? Perhaps we need to examine our holiday celebrations a bit and evaluate how the good may be replacing the best. Our thankfulness must begin with God. Then we can be thankful for the many relationships and blessings that He has given to us. Family is defiantly one of those blessings. Food is also a blessing, because without it, we would not be here long. Football, well that is definitely more, take it or leave it. In the hierarchy of things that I am thankful for, football is somewhere at the bottom of the list. Just like Santa and commercialism try to overtake the true meaning of Christmas, and candy filled eggs and chocolate produced by rabbits overshadows Easter, so too, the three “F’s” try to be a substitute for thankfulness. Our founding fathers knew this and that is why we have this day specifically dedicated to being thankful. They were thankful to God first, others second, and things last. We must be the same today.
This thanksgiving, we are thankful to God for creating us, giving us the opportunity to love Him through the sacrificial death of His Son for us, and for the many blessings that we have. We are thankful for our families. They have loved us down through the years and have always been a source of comfort and support, both in the good times and in the bad times. We are thankful for friends. We have so many who have loved us, not because we are blood related, but because we connect with each other on so many different levels. We had many friends these past weeks, who took off work and traveled great distances to be with us and support us in person. We are thankful for all the new friends that we have because of the unfortunate passing of Hannah. Although we wish she were here with us today, the love and support shown by so many does bring some comfort to us. Last, but certainly not least, we are thankful for those who fought for Hannah’s life in the hospital. The nurses and doctors were an amazing team of both talent and support. They were our “battle buddies” through these dark days, and we are extremely thankful to all of them!
We are blessed and thankful.
Hannah Helps 