Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of the best holidays this country has to offer. A day dedicated to thanking God for his generous provision in our lives, that's a good idea. Thanks to George Washington, I believe, it's official, and I personally hope it always will be.
This year is significant because it's the first year I have celebrated thanksgiving with Janet as my wife. Due to circumstances with work and both of us fighting colds I decided it would be best for us to stay home and be together, and just have a low key day. I put some thought into how we can start to build some thanksgiving traditions of our own and with my wife's help we had a pretty sweet thanksgiving morning this morning.
First we had a nice breakfast together, something that doesn't happen often in this busy season of life. Then Janet and I took time to tell each other about the grace of God that we are thankful for in each other's lives. That was a sweet experience. By God's grace we're growing in our likeness to Jesus Christ through our marriage. This is something we need to do more of as a couple.
After praying and thanking God for that grace we read from Genesis 32. That is the story of Jacob and his encounter with God in which he wrestles with God and leaves the encounter a changed man, changed forever to live for the glory of God. Jacob was never the same after that encounter. In a similar way, Jan and I have never been the same since Jesus saved us from our sin through his death on the cross and his subsequent resurrection. I wanted us to remember the mercy of God in saving us through that powerful history in the Bible. We then read a sermon by D. Martyn Lloyd Jones about that passage from Genesis 32. God met us in our new tradition, we were both filled with fresh amazement at the grace of God.
I normally wouldn't publicize what we did next but Jan asked me to do so; here it is. A poem for my wife about our love and how it's a gift from God.

If what we built was built on us,
then what we build would fall apart,
Or merely on our mutual trust,
we would not journey very far,
For this man is not made of solid gold,
nor even something less, but flesh,
and that itself has caught the plague,
And is not the stuff of which true love is made.
But Gospel love, priceless blood,
the depth of God's great love for you,
this and this alone He says,
will make our love steadfast and true.
So, I love you because He first loved me,
You do the same and we will be,
doing what we were made to do,
from before the beginning,
made one from two.

I don't know what all of our friends do for thanksgiving, but if one can get past that terrible feeling that you're about to do something cheesy by talking about what you're thankful for, there just might be a powerful encounter with the Living God that awaits. There certainly was for Jan and I this morning. Thankful for all of you...