Another Thanksgiving...

Another Thanksgiving weekend has come…another whole year gone by…season upon season and here we are again.  The leaves are changing colour, vibrant orange, red and yellow…fall is upon us when all that has been planted will soon be harvested and the land will once again go to sleep in winters slumber.  Life and it's endless seasons…the Lord promised that season will always follow season until He comes again…His promise of life now and His promise of life to come.

Thanksgiving a time to be thankful…yet every day given is a time to be thankful.  I'm learning this thing called gratitude…it causes me to stop and think…to think about my attitude even in the midst of hardship.  Desiring to live a life full of gratitude, knowing that as long as I have breath there is reason to give thanks.  Learning to see deeper, to step back and take in, really take in what is around me. 

It has been dreary here today with a bit of rain through the night.  But this morning when I went out to feed the horses the sun broke through and all that was around me glistened in that sunshine.  The red leaves of the sumac were brilliantly beautiful.  All I wanted was to grab my camera and capture this sparking fall treasure, but by the time I got back in the sun had bowed once again behind the clouds.  

How is that something in death can be so beautiful…we all know that as the leaves turn those brilliant shades of red, orange and yellow, it will be short lived…but it will be glorious and then the trees will be bare.  As I'm writing and thinking about this…how death can be so beautiful…I am reminded of my Saviour…my beautiful Saviour whose life was nailed upon that tree.  He hung there for you, for me…the beautiful Saviour…He gave everything…His death was by no mean beautiful…it was ugly, tortuous, painful, humiliating…yet He was still my beautiful Saviour.  And when His last breath was given up and He was taken down from that tree and placed in a rich man's tomb the sun came up on that glorious morning three days later and He was gone.  The beautiful Saviour…death could not keep Him, could not hold Him down…death was defeated.

I have heard numerous stories of people on their death bed…a place of pain, suffering, of knowing soon that they will depart this earth and yet there be praises to their Saviour upon their lips…they are beautiful even as the shadow of death hovers over them…what a testimony.  The glorious spender of the colours of fall before they are no more and winters slumber takes over.  And though my Saviour's death be everything but beautiful, it was beautiful…the most beautiful gift ever given to mankind.  May your everyday be a day of thanks...