Can You Count to Twelve?

“O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.” (Psalm 136:1)

 

In the hard-scrabble life of the ancient Near East, this admonition seems shocking. Their every day existence was what Charles Swindoll once called “life on the ragged edge.” But there it is. “Give thanks.”  Let’s just go ahead and admit that no matter how rough our lives here in America may be from time to time, it doesn’t compare to being a nomadic shepherd or gleaning from the fields the harvesters have already worked or disease with no antibiotics, scarce fresh water or famine. Even to them, the command was to “give thanks.”

 

Now, thankfulness seems to be making a comeback. A number of my Facebook friends have been posting something for which they are thankful every day. It’s a great idea that I noticed too late to join. I have much to be thankful for, it’s true, but I have struggled to find what I wanted to say; until now.

 

One of my co-workers has been doing the Facebook “I’m thankful for” thing and I reference her here with her permission. Each day she posted something for which she was thankful. Yesterday, the worst thing happened. Yesterday, her husband of twenty years was in a tragic accident at work and did not survive. I thought yesterday would have ended the streak.

 

But it didn’t. I am not sure where such faith comes from and I can only wonder if I had something as painful as that happen to me if I’d be able to muster up thanks for anything. But she did. Just before day 25 rolled into day 26, the new post appeared. Not once, but twelve times in her post she said “I’m thankful for…” I thought it was eleven times at first, but on the recount, it was twelve. Twelve . On the worst of a today one could imagine. Twelve!

 

Let’s face it. Bad things happen to good people too. There is no immunity in life. It is downright delusional to imagine that you’ll skate through with no heartache or pain. You can become bitter. That isn’t hard or courageous. That’s easy. Thankfulness is not for the fainthearted or the weak. It isn’t only for the convenient seasons of life. It is for the hard times, too. It is especially powerful then.

 

So this Thanksgiving, as you gather round the table with friends and family, you may have a bucket-load of problems - and please don’t mistake this for some pollyannish pretend “everything is wonderful” kind of advice. Far from it. Most people have enough problems that if we only knew we’d opt for our own instead if ever given the choice. No, I know you have challenges. Some of you have more than it seems you can bear. Pause for a moment. Think. Reflect a bit before you bite that turkey. How high can you count?

 

Give Thanks!

 

Jerald

 

(All thoughts and opinions herein are strictly my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Parrish Medical Center)

Remembering My Blessings

“Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.” (Joshua 4:2,3)

Recording important events, historic occasions or legal transactions required significantly more effort in Joshua’s day than it does now. Agreements were chiseled in stone and monuments were erected at historic sites. Now documents and photos can be digitized and sent across the world almost instantly. For the occasion of crossing the Jordan, Joshua wanted to make sure the people remembered. Still ringing in his ears was the warning of Moses who had led the people out of Egypt and for forty plus years in the desert wilderness. Moses had warned them to not forget the events that had brought them there. He knew their nature and ours as well. Forgetting comes so easily to us. So Joshua told them to pick one person from each of the twelve tribes. Each one was to pick up a rock from the middle of the Jordan and carry it with them to the encampment they would settle in for the night. There they stacked the stones to fashion a historic marker of the day’s events. “In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” (Joshua 4:6b, 7 NIV)

Thanksgiving is about remembering. It is about visiting the places in your heart where you have piled up stones to mark the important events, the places in your life’s journey were you were up against it and God showed up. It is about those places where you knew you were blessed and you were sure you could never forget the feelings, the moment, the people, the place. But we can. We do. We forget our blessings and the One who provided them just as easily as they did in Moses’ day. His warning to them is a pertinent to us now as it was to them then. “Be careful!” “Don’t forget!” But they did. And I do. And so have you. So before this Thanksgiving passes, I’m taking some time to re-visit some stones that I have piled up through the years and remember their meaning.

There is the beautiful young woman on her father’s arm at the end of the aisle at that church in Tampa, Florida. Here are three little girls wrapped in pink and white baby blankets. And there is the hospital waiting room where we heard “it isn’t cancer, she’ll be ok” when she was twelve. Those stones over there are for three weddings, two grandchildren and two more on the way. And these are for the house on Fox Ct in Titusville, FL and the tiny apartment on Sutherland in Knoxville, TN so that I won't forget how far I have come. Places. Stones. Blessings. There are these and so many more.

This Thanksgiving, remember those places, those stone piles in your own life. Pay them another visit. And give thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jerald

Thanksgiving 2010

Glimmers-Thanksgiving 2010


I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds. Ps. 9:1

“Look Papa,” he said, “Its an Indian and a Pilgrim.” His little paper cut-out figures had been neatly colored by his 5 year old hands. “Nice work. Its getting close to Thanksgiving,” I said. “Thanksgiving?” he replied. I went on to explain that at the first Thanksgiving the Pilgrims and the Indians got together to celebrate a bountiful harvest. It turns out there is much more to the story. Isn’t that always the case?

In 1620, to escape religious persecution, the Pilgrims left England for America. They arrived in December of 1620, stayed mostly on the Mayflower through that winter, struggling with scurvy and other illnesses. By the time spring rolled around, nearly half of them had died. Their first attempts at farming didn’t turn out so well and an Indian named Squanto, a former slave in England, offered to teach them what to plant and how to grow it in America. 1622 fell far short of expectations as well because the way the community was organized didn’t produced the desired result. Governor Bradford wisely chose to do things differently and productivity soared. The following autumn of 1623 brought a bountiful harvest. The Pilgrims invited Squanto and Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoags (really, I’m not making this up) to bring their immediate families to join them for a celebration of thanksgiving. Little did they know that “immediate family” in Wampanoag means anyone closer than third cousin, twice removed.

So a host of people came, dragging five freshly killed deer with them. They all dined on venison, squash, various fowl (turkey was not in any records) lobster, beans and other things. No pumpkin pies. Along with the harvest bounty, what they had in abundance were thankful hearts. They were alive. The village was flourishing. They had never heard of political correctness, so they gave thanks to God for “blessing the harvest.” Imagine.

Now I won’t bore you with all the details, and there are many more and they are not really boring at all, but I need to get on to my primary point. We owe Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday not to the Pilgrims or Squanto or George Washington or even Abraham Lincoln whose proclamation still sends chills up my spine. We owe the day to a woman named Sarah Josepha Hale.

Sarah Josepha Hale was a remarkable woman of significant literary skill. In a time when the education of women was not deemed important, her family made sure she was. Though she could not go to college, her brother went to Dartmouth and he shared what he learned with her. After she married Mr. Hale and had five children, Mr. Hale died leaving her to care for their five young children alone. They had been married for only eleven years.

Her gift for writing had not gone unnoticed and she published poems and novels and eventually became the editress, the title she preferred to editor, of Godey’s Lady’s Book, the most influential women’s publication of its day.

It was her lobbying effort over a span of forty years that finally convinced Abraham Lincoln to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, unifying various state celebrations across the land. As I read about her and her role in our national Thanksgiving celebration, I wondered about what drove her to such dedication to thankfulness. My guess is that her hardships were as much responsible as her blessings. Hardships have a way of seasoning our blessings, making them all the sweeter. That’s the way is seems to work with most people.

So you can thank Sarah Josepha Hale tomorrow as you give thanks for so many other things. And should you forget about her tomorrow, try singing “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” She’s responsible for that too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jerald

Thanksgiving Edition

Glimmers
November 20, 2009

"I thank my God every time I remember you..." (Phil. 1:3, NASV)

Last night my wife asked me to get the little pilgrim salt and pepper shakers, napkin holder and spoon rest from the top shelf of the cabinet above the oven. They are from the collection Publix supermarket used to sell, now discontinued, I'm sad to say. Thanksgiving preparations have begun in earnest at the Smith house.

That got me thinking about being thankful. As I began thinking this through on my morning walk, I thought about the farmer who got up at 4 a.m. to milk the cows that produced the milk I put in my morning coffee. Our society is so removed from the production of the things we use everyday, I’ll bet there are people who don’t even know milk comes from cows. Some people are so confused about it they think the chicken in those Chick-fil-A commercials comes from those Holsteins carrying the sign, “Eat mor chikn.” But chicken doesn’t come from cows, beef does. And besides, those are DAIRY cows. Hello!

This ignorance about where things come from is boldly displayed at the fast food restaurants that proclaim their burgers are from “100% Angus beef.”Angus cows are just beef cows with black hair. I suspect the beef from red Santa Gertrudis or gray Brahman or white Charolais cows is just as good, they just need better marketing. But I digress. The point is how many things have you used today that someone else worked very hard to produce? How many others gave their time and expertise in the doing of their jobs so that you could do yours? At the risk of missing some of the hundreds of people involved, allow me to illustrate. I’ll begin with arriving at work this morning, just to keep it simple.

I parked my car and before I could lock the doors, a volunteer driving the shuttle arrived and asked if I needed a ride. I noticed the grounds were neatly trimmed, thanks guys! The South entrance door opened automatically, thank you Business Office for paying FPL. Thank you to HIS for coding the procedures so the Business Office could bill for them to receive payment so we could pay FPL. I saw clean floors because environmental services had worked hard overnight to scrub, polish and vacuum them. I unlocked the door to my office and turned on my computer. Thank you Information Systems! I took the daily census and referrals off the printer to start planning my day. Admitting, nursing, and clinical informatics all had a hand in that. So many people to thank already and I had barely begun the day!

Now think about your job. Who ordered the gloves, prepared the meds, cooked the food, restocked linens, mopped the floors, drew the labs, took the Xrays, did the surgery, filed the reports, input the data, delivered the meals, transported the patient from the OR, and…well I think you get the picture. We all have hundreds of others to thank for their contributions to our being able to do our jobs.

Between now and Thanksgiving Day, how about telling some of them thanks for doing what they do so you have the opportunity to do what you do. And remember, as my minister likes to say, “Teamwork makes the dream work.”

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jerald