Ali's Thanksgiving Carol

It's Thanksgiving!!!  I absolutely love this holiday set aside to be Thankful.  I love the emphasis on family, the farming harvest, I love baking and cooking and blessing those I love through what I make, I love being reminded to be thankful to the God who gives us so so much.  I love pretty much everything about this holiday.  So take a journey with me to my Thanksgivings Past, and maybe we will all be reminded of what we are thankful for: (enter wistful music and twirling feeling like on Dicken's Christmas Carol)

1.  I'm just 18 or 19 - lying there in a cold hospital room in Canada of all places!  This was the first Thanksgiving I remember where things were very different for me. I became quite sick (gallbladder but they didn't know it then) and was put in the tiny local hospital for 5 days I think.  They put me on a liquid diet.  I remember clearly talking to my sweet Daddy on the phone and he told me maybe they would let me eat cranberry jello since it was Thanksgiving day.  The whole experience was a blur - but looking back I am so thankful for my big sister who spent so much time watching over me and loving on me, and for friends who were by my side during that time.  On to the next Thanksgiving a few years later ...

2.  Lying on the couch and my parents home.  I had to stay home from the family Thanksgiving because I was sick recovering from strep throat.  My parents and whole family was over 2 hours away and the doctor told me to rush to the ER because I was having trouble breathing.  My mom told me to call the neighbors (who just so happened to be the family of my sweet Farmer Boy!) and Joshua himself came and drove me to the local ER (we were not dating at the time but best friends)  I told him to just drop me off and go back to his family Thanksgiving dinner.  But he refused and stayed in the ER with me for hours making me laugh and talking with me.  His parents waited on having dinner til after 8pm when they let me go home.  I was overwhelmed by his and their generosity.  I started seriously falling in love with him. :)

3.  My very first home alone - and this year  I was sick again and couldn't make the trip to the family dinner.  Joshua (who by now was my intended) was away with his family in another state.  I was really alone.  My amazing parents came to my house and dropped off a lovely slice of pumpkin pie before heading to the family dinner.  I wore my Farmer Boy's big cozy sweater all day.  Perhaps this Thanksgiving was one in which I learned the most because I was really alone and I could have let it ruin it, but I decided to make the most of it and enjoy my day just me and my God.  It was so blessed and full of reminders of what I am Thankful for.  Now on to the last Thanksgiving memory ...

4.  I really disliked this hospital - maybe because  I was hospitalized for a couple weeks - very sick with pericarditis.  I was downtown and my sweet Farmer Boy spent every possible moment by my side.  On Thanksgiving I was very depressed, my family stopped by and Joshua went home to have dinner with his family (which I definitely didn't want to make him miss!) but at around 10pm he called and said he was coming back to spend the night at the hospital with me.  I was so surprised that he would drive 2 hours after a busy day to spend time with me because he knew how lonely I was.   (twirling feeling and music and suddenly we're back to the present)

The point of this journey to Thanksgivings Past is to remind you all (and myself) that no matter where you are today, or who is with you, or how you are feeling - there are always blessings and reasons to be Thankful. 

Thanksgiving Present: At the moment I am fighting a cold among other things.  I got the news  from my doctor today that I have to really be careful of what I eat and may even have to be on a liquid diet (because of the likelyhood that my pancreas is upset again)...which is disappointing since I just LOVE all the butter and yumminess of Thanksgiving dinner.  BUT I am choosing now to find joy in the God who is always with me.  I may or may not spend the day around a table with the family I love ... but whatever the case I am grateful.  It's not easy - I feel very disappointed about possibly missing the day with family and my Husband .. but it is a choice I need to make. (update: my cold held back enough for me to go to the family dinner and even though I wasn't able to eat everything I had a lovely time!)

I would love to hear your Thanksgiving stories!