Being Thankful

In a Bible study years ago, we discussed being thankful, and I’m reminded of that session often. There are days when it’s easy to give thanks, times with so much good in our lives, that it could come quite naturally. Though when we’re having fun it may slip by us to say the words. Thinking of the abundance of good food, the sunshine on a day such as today as I write this post, and friends and family around me.

In the study I mentioned, we were reminded to give thanks, even when it’s not easy, as Paul the apostle did when he talked about the thorn in his flesh. What was that about? “In all things, give thanks.” But I wasn’t thinking of Paul. I was thinking of myself and what was around me.

I struggled with that statement. I mean, how does one say thanks for turmoil within the home, or for health challenges. Or for the death of a good friend that made me sadder still. I knew friends were praying for me and it surely felt like I was climbing a mountain. Insurmountable stuff. At least that’s the way it felt.

In time, I could look back—if not at the moment—and know there were people around me holding me up, and as in the Footprints poem, that God had been there all the time carrying me. And so I could say “Thank you, God” for that.

Today I say thank you more easily for home and family, for work that brings in income, for available health services we need, and a country at peace. I can encourage others for I have been through a few valleys, including the death of several close friends in the past couple of years, and both of my parents.

This month marks one year from Mom’s death, and though I miss her so much, I can say thanks for her life and what it meant to me, and all the things she did for me. For persistence when I was a small child and not developing as I should, for her continuing to seek answers. When she believed in me when I had trouble believing in myself, and later when she celebrated my publishing successes with me. Indeed, she was one of my best cheerleaders. Both my parents were that for me.

In a poem prompt last October in Poetic Bloomings, an online poetry group, members were asked to write about cornucopias, those baskets filled with good things and shown in art especially at Thanksgiving and harvest time. My poem took a different turn and came out this way:

Always Something Good*

It doesn’t matter the container

a straw basket, cornucopia

or a box for treasures

in spite of disappointments and sadness

there’s always something

a good night of sleep, a gift from a friend

a helping hand when needed

Slip on socks of thankfulness

even in the dark and stormy moments

when all hope seems lost

 

And so today, wherever you find yourself, I hope there is something for which you can give thanks, even in a most difficult situation. Or perhaps you have much to say thanks for right now. Let’s give thanks to God for those things he gives us, including the grace that came along with Jesus’ birth. May you have a blessed Thanksgiving!

 Carolyn R. Wilker is an author and editor from southwestern Ontario, Canada.

https://www.carolynwilker.ca/about/

* Also from Travelling Light by Carolyn R. Wilker 

Storytelling—Carolyn R. Wilker

If someone asked me what I liked best when I was a child, it might have been hearing stories. When Mom tucked us in at night, she told us a story—such as Little Red Riding Hood or The Three Bears that she told from memory. Every week at Sunday School, the teacher read a Bible story.

When we girls were a little older, we told those stories or read to our younger siblings. When relatives gathered around the table for a meal, guess what? More stories.

During my Grade 6 year, when I was off school for several weeks on account of illness, my mother knew a good way to occupy my time. She bought three brand new books for me and I sped through them. I had nothing else to do, but read and sleep. Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell, Trixie Belden and the Red Trailer Mystery were done in a matter of days, and having new books of my own was a treasure.

My Grade 8 teacher read to us each day after lunch. I didn’t want to miss any of the adventures, whether it was Tom Sawyer or Swiss Family Robinson, two of the three books he read to us that year.

We had a library in our nearby community. One day Mom said to my sister and me that we could go to the library while she did some errands in town and that we were to be back at the car in ten minutes. I was overwhelmed at the choices and neither of us could not decide on one book in such a short time and so went back to the car without a book, which surprised my mother. We would have needed a library card and we lacked the time to do both. It was as bit disappointing and we didn’t get another opportunity. Farm life was busy; and time was at a premium.

In high school we had our own library in the school, from which I borrowed one book in my first year. I travelled to school by bus, and it was winter; the buses were cancelled because of a blizzard, and though I returned the book immediately after getting off the bus the next day, the librarian still gave me a hard time because the book was one day late. I never borrowed another book from that place.

Later, when I taught preschoolers, I borrowed books from the nearby library to augment our school’s collection and ones that I wanted to read too. That was the real beginning of my love of the library and being a regular patron.

I took my children to the library when they could only toddle across the floor or climb the steps on hands and knees. We borrowed stacks of books each time and read a story at bedtime every night and during the day.

 

Middle daughter with her book about cats to tease her into reading

My girls are grown. Our eldest is an avid reader, the youngest is studying for a new career, and the middle one reads to her two small children. And I read and tell stories to my granddaughters too.  

Today, after telling stories at the Waterloo Region Museum, to other people’s children, I stopped at the library to pick up a book that I had reserved, and then another. 

On Tuesday this week, a bag of books I have collected and read over the years, minus ones I cannot part with or need to keep, will go to a new home—the Ronald McDonald House—so that parents, having a sick child and time on their hands, might pick up a book for pleasure and enjoy it themselves or read to their child. It’s a small thing I can do to help them and share the pleasures of a good story.

www.carolynwilker.ca

Once Upon a Sandbox, Hidden Brook Press