I learned the song ~ Over The Hills And Through The Woods in grade school~ I just loved it. We practiced over and over again. It was the first song I remember singing on a stage. Sweet memories!
It is that time of year again. We have expectations and fantasies of what Thanksgiving and Christmas should look like. I mean I imagine the Walton style dinner where love oozes and the dinner is picture perfect just like the Norman Rockwell paintings.
Funny~ when I remember going to my Grandma Baker's I only remember how happy I was that we were all together~ laughing and having a good time. I don't remember the dinners at all. My grandmother only had one arm so the only thing in the world she could not do with one arm was peel potatoes~ no kidding. (She could even drive a stick-shift car.) But she had a way of making instant potatoes taste like real. They came in a great big gallon can. She doctored those babies in such a way not a soul knew they were instant. Other than her potatoes ~I don't remember what she served.
But honestly~ I don't even remember where we all managed to find a place to sit. Looking at that house today it is so amazing to me. It was the size of a "cracker jack" box. She must have been stressed over trying to make it all work.
Yet~ why do we slip back into the fantasy of having a perfect day. The truth is families are not perfect. There are those that are quiet and those that are loud and boisterous. There are those that are gentle and kind and those that are well~ not so. But none-the-less we are still family. Warts and all! Sometimes the problem comes in the fact that that we would rather run back to a make believe world ~to a family we wish we had instead of accepting and being okay with what they are really like.
I don't know about you but I would rather spend this Thanksgiving giving thanks for my family members…….just as they are. Accepting each and everyone for just who they are~ as they are! How about loving them enough to look past each other's faults as we seek to see them just as God sees them~ fearfully and wonderfully made. We are all flawed with weaknesses. Brokenness is a fact of the human condition.
The truth is we are ordinary people who have ordinary lives. That is exactly where God wants to work ordinary miracles to make flawed humans to become more like Him and His Image. How about we look at ourselves and our family~ that we love~ as those that are totally loved and accepted by God~ no matter what they look like~ act like ~ or how they behave.
Romans 5:8
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that,
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
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