The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living

               The locusts in the back lawn - always the last to lose their leaves - are bare.  We've had our first snow, which means we need extra time in the morning to don hats and gloves as we rush out the door to school.  The giant, inflatable witch’s cauldron that hovered in Home Depot has been replaced by Santa and a smiling elf atop a whirling helicopter.  All signs that my favorite holiday – Thanksgiving – is almost here.

                For most of my life Thanksgiving included a few glimpses of Macy’s Parade and a sumptuous dinner at Grandma’s, our large extended family seated at a massive, provisional table constructed out of ping-pong tables and saw horses, with football, Dominos, and Mom’s matchless banana cream pie following.  For a time it included a second family celebration at night, complete with leftover turkey on buns and Bingo with prizes.  Now that we live far away from family members, Thanksgiving entails hosting whatever generous relatives decided to make the trip to join us and some members of our church family at a much smaller table.  (Aunt Lynne’s deviled eggs still make their appearance.) 

                But I’m blessed to say that for all of my life, Thanksgiving has always been more than a day of feasting and football.  It’s been a day that begins in worship, in a giving of thanks that continues – both outwardly and inwardly – throughout the day.

Our younger boys are learning Psalm 27 lately.  It’s a familiar psalm, ideal for little men in love with the idea that they are Christian soldiers: “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (vs. 1).  Psalm 27 was my Grandma’s favorite Psalm, and her funeral text.  It was my husband’s high school graduation text: “One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life” (vs 4).  It was the Psalm our pastor read on the night we learned that B.J.’s father had filed for divorce: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up” (vs. 10).  It’s the Psalm that comes to me now, as I muse over the year gone by, it’s trials and joys, and all the struggles with my own sins and sinful nature:  “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living (vs. 13).”

                And I have seen – and I do see – his goodness.  Do you, dear friend?  Here and now, in this life, in the land of the living?  There are the joys of health, family and friends, sunshine and rain, and food…in abundance.  There are the blessings of faithful preaching and the communion of the saints.  Sometimes it’s in the way of trial and pain that we experience his goodness.  Perhaps your year included illness or injury; maybe it’s been marked by death or depression.  It’s my prayer that you see the goodness of the Lord to you in sending those trials.  Even if you don’t understand his way right now, I pray that you find peace in believing that he works all things for the good of those he’s called.  It’s my prayer that that knowledge spurs you on the path of obedience, for its when we walk in that way that we have peace which passes all understanding.

              Hear and now, in this life.  In the land of the living.