When we were little kids we had these small bright orange paper leaves cut out of card-stock to decorate the dining room table with. Each year, we’d pull from the pile of blank leaves and write things we were thankful for. My mom kept them so both old and new leaves decorated our table. I always excitedly ran around the table when she got them out each year to read the old ones. I liked studying the way my handwriting changed over the years. The things I was thankful for varied to some degree, but without a doubt, there were repeated leaves of ‘Jesus,’ family,’ and ‘friends.’ But just as my handwriting has changed with time, so has my depth of gratitude for the three things I’m most thankful for.
When you’re a kid, you just accept things the way they are. You know nothing apart from your reality. You don’t know how vastly different your day to day is from kids on the other side of the world, or even on the other side of your own neighborhood.
Sure, you hear that somewhere in the world there are little kids that are hungry. Of course it’s not just something adults say to get you to eat your vegetables. But it is this far off concept that fades from the forefront of your mind once you finish your broccoli.
Those “hungry little kids somewhere in the world” have names and faces to me now.
The children that I heard about when I was a child now have children of their own. When I was playing with barbies and American girl dolls, they were walking a few miles by themselves to run errands for their families. When I was going to school to learn and play, they were finding jobs to contribute to their families’ income. These children I had heard about at my dinner table have now redefined my definition of hard work. Here in Honduras, people may work 9 hour days of exhausting manual labor and make only 140 lempiras, which is about 5 USD. There are Nicaraguans that walk miles to the dump each day. They sort through the already picked over trash to find pieces of recyclables. At the end of the month, the average person sells what they’ve collected for 640 cordobas, which is 20 USD. Twenty dollars for their family to live on per month. And despite these financial ‘parameters’ of having very little, those of them that know Christ live like they have everything to give. I’d venture to say they feel less weighed down by financial ‘limitations’ than most financially “well-off” families in the US. How do they do it without crippling under exhaustion? How do the husbands and fathers that have the innate desire to provide, protect, and be enough for their families survive the weight of the unknown? How do the mothers that have the longing in their hearts to nurture and give live in peace when they don’t know where their next meal is coming from? The how is the security they have in the Father. You see, the answer is not as complex as the question. They know what it means to depend on His manna each day. They’ve trusted and seen that He provides. They’ve stood in front of Him with nothing to offer but their faith, and have tasted and seen that He is good. That’s not to say that their knees weren’t trembling. That’s not to say that their faith at times may have been no bigger than a mustard seed. But rather, it means that their bravery allowed them to stand face to face with the Father in a heart posture of trust.
Sometimes I think when we realize we are getting to the end of our rope or if we feel our pocket of safety dwindling, we panic and scramble to fill the gap between where we are and the emptiness of the unknown. It’s not necessarily at the fault of our own. We were born into a culture that functions under the shelter of safety nets and back up plans. Savings accounts, 401Ks, security questions, contracts, insurance, credit cards, weekend plans, etc. Please know I’m not saying safety nets are bad. By all means, have those accounts. Pay your car insurance- it’s illegal if you don’t.. These things are blessings, things to be thankful for, and all healthy things to implement. They are things to thank God for on Thanksgiving (and the other 364 days of the year too). But don’t let them serve as higher shelters in your life than the Almighty. Give Him room to show himself faithful. Expect Him to come through. When’s the last time you stepped with your right foot not knowing where the left one would land? What are you doing now that requires faith?
It required faith for me to say yes to this journey with God… my knees were trembling at the $18,100, the community living, living out of a backpack, not knowing where my feet would land, etc. But in my heart posture of trust, which I admit was a process to get to, He showed up. And because of this dependence on Him, I have more thanksgiving in my heart than I’ve ever had before on this day. I’m so thankful I got to be a child in my childhood. I’m thankful I got to play with the neighborhood kids and make friends with my classmates. I’m thankful I always went to bed with a full belly. I’m thankful for my education. I’m thankful for manna from heaven each day. I’m thankful for my family, for my friends, and for my sweet sweet Jesus.
Photos from Thanksgiving Day in Valle de Angeles (Valley of the Angels), Honduras.
