Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Monday November 21, 2011

Thanksgiving is certainly a holiday with biblical roots, and absolutely with grounded tradition in America. I love the idea. The celebratory mode and frazzled cooks are for you to enjoy. I would settle for Peanut Butter and Strawberry Preserves along with a large cup of Peace. (If some invertebrate slime sends this to Joyce, I will join the Pooch family Thursday).

I often pray for a spirit of thankfulness and after being rebuked by a reader for near blasphemy, I was comforted by a thought from another near heathen who prayed and taught his readers to pray for this wonderful attitude of mind and heart. William Shakespeare wrote; "O Lord that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness." To give you some idea as to why I join with the Bard of Avon on this I mention that the passing of Andy Rooney motivated several of my family members to immediately contact CBS and offer my services as resident curmudgeon at a considerable discount.

They even sent a brief resume to CBS noting that while my eyebrows are much less than Andy's, I am 20 years younger and though I have no real writing ability I do use a computer and I will require no training whatsoever on being an old grouch. I was not supposed to see the letter and resume, but I have my sources. If the Lord answers the prayers of my family and many friends, even a few names on the petition I do not recognize, you may have to tune in to be blessed by my broad deep ruminations.

While I go through the motions commonly associated with family and Thanksgiving Day, I am painfully aware of my immediate and extended kinfolk's inability to exude compassion to the elderly. (Me). Yet, I pray for the gift of thankfulness from the Lord. When all is said and done, aside from Jesus, the family, immediate and extended, is near all I have to be thankful for in the realm called earth.

Over the span of my journey which is blessed by a large unknown, the time of my departure, I have accumulated numerous things that I supposed at the time were "to die for" only to awaken to the truth that very few things you can hold in hand or title to are of such value. Job knew this truth as witnessed by his faith response to the losses he suffered. Even after all these years many are conned into thinking the response of Job was somehow stoical. I hold to the faith response line. We never lose our love ones as is witnessed by his testimony when several different messengers brought the news of his vast holdings and his ten children, seven sons and three daughters were gone. He gave one of the most faithful statements in history with this in Job 1:21 "And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."

The statement is not of fate, or karma, but the recourse of a man who knew the Lord and understood His ways and expressed this faith in God's just dealings. Take the time to truly thank the Lord from your heart for His bountiful blessing all around you.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2011 Use with credit

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