I am a big Holiday Person. It’s something my Mom instilled in me. In my family we do holidays BIG. For Christmas, our house becomes a Winter Wonderland and on Thanksgiving, our table looks like a Publix holiday commercial (Publix = Florida’s supermarket).
So, naturally, I planned to bring my holiday cheer and to my World Race family and orchestrate a huge Turkey Day feast. And God decided to turn my plans into a lesson on humility.
I hate those lessons.
The following is copy-pasted from an email I wrote to my Dad 2 nights ago.
It’s unedited and raw emotion –so, please excuse the language 😉
Dad,
My team decided to stay here in Grigoriopol for Thanksgiving and just have a small Thanksgiving here with our pastor and his family in our town.
I was soooo disappointed, because I had been orchestrating for weeks a giant 3-team, 30-person thanksgiving feast/gathering in the capital an hour away.
BUT GOD HAD OTHER PLANS.
Its just part of God's humbling process in me.
I realize this, but it still suuuucks.
Grrrrrrrr……
I had to excuse myself to go outside and throw a fit.
It reminded me of when I freaked out at Training Camp when I first got assigned to my all-girl team. Except this time, I couldn't call you, Dad. I just had my Heavenly Dad to call on.
So I called on Him, alright.
I called on Him, outside in the dark.
I yelled and I bitched and I cried.
It wasn't just that I was disappointed my pretty picture of a giant Thanksgivng feast fell apart, it was that I was feeling God rip away my expectations, my priorities, my plans, my visions of how things 'should be'.
And then asked him – finally – what HE wants this year's Thanksgiving to look like.
Because I hadn't bothered to ask before. I just figured that the picture that I had in my head: " recreating our family's 30 person Thanksgiving dinner table, with assigned plates for people to cook orchestrated via email ahead of time, the 'go around the table and Say-What-You're-Thankful-For Game', the whole 9 yards…" I figured that my mental picture was GOOD. So why not go for it?
It was Good. But just because its good and its what I've always done- and where I come from – doesn't mean that its what I need to do this time. Just because it’s a good thing, doesn't mean it’s the thing God wants this time. Just because its what I want, doesn't mean its best. This SUCKS to realize.
As I paced back and forth outside the house after my little tantrum in the dark, I felt God ripping away another layer. A layer that I thought was "part of me" – my zeal for holidays, my knack for bringing people together, my dedication to a huge damn gathering with a huge damn turkey and everyone had better damn like it! 😉
that the only things that remain are the ones that are absolutely necessary,
the ones that are HIS.
THIS is what I signed up for.
This is what I asked Him to do.
This is what growing feels like.
Every single time I've asked Him, in my frustration,
I hear the same answer,
God wants me to give him everything – including Thanksgiving. I think the most difficult for me to give him are my plans. My dreams and my plans. But I'm giving them. Reluctantly. But I'm giving them, one by one. And trying to leave myself open to the idea that what HE wants things to look like might be better than what I want them to look like.
And this year it might look like a Thanksgiving without Turkey and a Christmas without a Christmas Tree… but I'm slooowly opening my mind to the idea that He might have something delightfully different planned.
Keep me in your prayers!
And, oh yeah…Happy Thanksgiving 🙂
Love you!
