What A Strange Way To "Give Thanks"

For those of us who live in the USA yesterday was a day we call Thanksgiving Day. It is a day set aside once a year to pause and reflect on all the blessings we have in our lives. For Christians this of course is a time for us to also give thanks to the One who meets all our needs each and every day. So how do we celebrate?

We gorge ourselves past the point of “being full” and sail right on into the sin of gluttony, cruising at a comfortable 110 miles per hour! Yeah, that’s how we give thanks. We make ourselves sick! Does anyone find that odd? We eat and eat and eat and eat until we are absolutely miserable! And when we reach the point of misery we fan out to find as comfortable a spot as we can so we can try to position ourselves where our lungs can find room to expand so we can still breathe. Ah, the good life. Really? Is it just me or does this not make sense? We celebrate by slowly killing ourselves!

But wait! There’s more! DESSERT! Just when we get to the point of feeling as though we may actually survive this disgusting display no self-control the ladies start parading out the massive doses of sugar. It is important to my health and the health of my new kidney that I keep my blood sugar under strict control. After surgery it was running in the mid to upper 200′s and I have been dieting and exercising so that Thanksgiving morning it was only 99. Not bad. The doctors want it to hover between 100 and 110.You’re doing good, Rich!

Just when I was feeling pretty good about myself a holiday slaps me right in the lips. Literally. Ever notice how we justify our overeating by telling ourselves it’s just one day a year? If that were true it would be nice. But it’s not true. Fact is, we overeat everyday! Maybe not to the degree of Thanksgiving Day, but Americans in particular eat excessively each and every day. (Unless of course we are in the middle of our next new diet which typically lasts about 3 days.)

Through the main meal I did fairly well, taking only one helping and then not even taking some of everything available. Plus, I didn’t finish everything on my only trek through our Disney World of food, so yeah, I was doing alright. But when the parade of the dancing pies began so did cracks in my pillars began to appear. “What do I do? What could I do? It was, after all, Thanksgiving Day. It only comes once a year, doesn’t it? And I sure don’t want to project the image that I’m not “thankful” for these blessings, do I?” Everyone worked very hard on this meal and it was, as usual, delicious!

Barely being able to walk I went the extra mile to make it back to the table. Let’s see…apple pie, chocolate tort, pumpkin cheesecake, and last but not least pecan pie. Oh yeah, and they were all homemade from scratch. In my head I heard a voice, “FLEE! Flee the sugar demon!”

But the only “sugar demon” I was able to conquer was the one lurking in the apple pie. I ate the other 3 sugar demons. The only thing to do at that point was to lie down on the floor and put a pillow over my head, which I did. Ashamed, I thanked God for all His blessings.(?) But somehow I didn’t feel good about it. Seemed kind of strange.

Denise and I eventually made it back to Fremont, stumbled into the house and took our positions. Me in my chair and her on the couch. There we moaned in the dark, the only light coming from the Christmas tree. As I laid back in my chair I gazed at the beauty of that tree, thought of Jesus and muttered...”What a strange way to give thanks. Forgive me, Lord.”

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