Sacred Connections: God's Grace
For many of us, Thanksgiving looked very different this year, and we may be anticipating that Christmas will as well. The usual houseful of people jammed around a dining table may have been reduced to a few folks who live in the same bubble or sharing a meal via Zoom. For those of us living alone, Thanksgiving may have felt like an even more solitary occasion. I found myself questioning, then second guessing each holiday decision I made. Our minds can tend to do that when we are baffled by circumstances that still feel unfamiliar and strange.
Many of us may have experienced moments of longing for those not present, maybe moments of frustration, or loneliness, even despair. We know this won’t last forever. We know we will truly experience a return to some kind of new normal in the months ahead. But here we are. And there was something very clarifying and simple as I counted my blessings this past Thanksgiving Day.
I felt God’s grace in the invitation from dear friends to join them for a very small gathering for Thanksgiving dinner. “You are family!” they said, and those words and the heartfelt sentiment behind them meant so much to me. I experienced God’s grace again when my friends accepted my reluctant decline of their invitation, with no judgment, no challenge, just understanding that I was making a decision that reflected my risk tolerance right now. God’s grace was in our still finding a way to greet each other that day. I stopped by early Thanksgiving afternoon for a brief outdoor visit on their front porch and was delighted to be introduced to other smaller family members including a gecko named Rocky, and a hedgehog named Gwen.
As I was leaving from our brief visit, there was God’s grace again, in the family’s insistence that they would bring a turkey dinner to my home later that day. I’ve cooked many a Thanksgiving meal and known the exhaustion that follows, but nothing would deter them, and I could only accept their amazing generosity. And there was God’s grace again with the gift of the delicious meal joyfully delivered, with the comfort I felt at my own dining room table, and the love I had experienced on this Thanksgiving. This was a Thanksgiving simply not like any other, and yet I felt so truly blessed.
In these quieter moments for some of us, or in these over-peopled moments for those seeing a lot of each other, we are confronted with God’s grace in deeply heartfelt ways. It might be in knowing we are considered family by dear friends despite physical distancing; or experiencing that sense of love and connection even in our time alone. It might be that in the midst of feeling overly surrounded by family and longing for a little solitude, we still see in those expectant faces the ones we love so fiercely, the ones who are such a blessing to us. We are surrounded by God’s grace in the moments of each day and in the sacred connections of our lives.
Sometimes our minds are so busy wanting something else we can miss God’s grace right in front of us. Let us see these glimpses of God’s grace in what is now. Let us savor the gift of God’s grace especially in these more challenging times in our lives.
