Give Thanks

“If anyone wants to move to the farm…I can make that happen.”

My father threw the words out effortlessly, seemingly without thought, across the table that Thanksgiving of ’95.

They hung in the air, the crystal-clear answer to years of prayer requests.  They seemed to shimmer there for a single moment, before the ebb and flow of conversation swallowed them, as family members laughed and kidded and children ran about screaming with the delight of unsupervised playtime with their grandparents. No further comments or discussion followed. But the memory of those words remained long beyond the overdone turkey, the ham and rolls and overabundance of desserts.

If anyone wants to move to the farm…

Those words would change our lives

Forever.

If forever seems a little over-the-top, a might too strong, or even a bit of an exaggeration…consider if you will where I am, what we do and who we now consider ourselves to be. Nothing, absolutely nothing,  is as we might have expected it all those years ago.

There was no way to predict how completely life-altering it would be to catch those few little words before they disappeared into conversational history. But, catch them we did…we held them close and made them our own, setting off on what became the journey of a lifetime. (both figuratively and literally)

The journey was most definitely not direct. It hasn’t always been pretty. And, I’ll let you in on a little secret…a lot of times it was anything but fun.  And, at times it seemed more than a little overwhelming and beyond what small sense of human strength we had.

Life ain't always beautiful

Sometimes it's just plain hard

Life can knock you down

It can break your heart

But the struggles make you stronger

And the changes make you wise

And happiness has its own way

Of takin' its sweet time

However, here we are. Twenty years into the future, with more to be thankful for than ever before.

And, as we wait for loved ones to arrive so we can feast on food grown and prepared with our own hands, celebrating the fact that we can all be together despite the tumultuous journey, spending time with our daughters and their husbands and those sweet little grandbabies we didn’t even let ourselves imagine…

We give thanks…

For the struggles and hardships, for the waits and frustrations, and all those painful moments..even the heartache and despair, because they somehow grant more sweetness…not just on Thanksgiving…but, every day.

No, life ain't always beautiful

Tears will fall sometimes

Life ain't always beautiful

But it's a beautiful ride!

                                           Gary Allan - Life Ain't Always Beautiful

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

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