“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy is everlasting. For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, and the hungry soul He has filled with good.”

(psalm 107: 1,9)

As I’ve been thinking through a summary of this year’s Thanksgiving experiment, I’ve realized that thoughts have not come as easily as they did in the 2008 rendition. Some years are just like that. Some days. Last year, my mind was hopping with post ideas. I was still high on the joy of a new Baby Girl, and one day’s post produced a whole list of other ideas for the next. This year, thanksgiving thoughts have not come as freely. The process has been a little more labored, and it’s required more discipline to fulfill my commitment of posting on twelve consecutive days.

Discipline. What an ugly word. It implies actual work, actual intention, actual effort, actual choice.

It’s so easy to think about giving thanks in terms of circumstances. And circumstances can be challenging. This year has been hard for our family. In some ways it carries a sense of loss. And loss does not readily co-exist with gratitude.

In February, my father (Paw-T) suffered a fairly severe stroke. As severe strokes go, it happened in the best way possible, and he has been recovering nicely. Still, it represented the loss of some skills, the loss of a carefree way of life, the loss of comfort, the loss of the familiar, and I suppose the loss of my last “fragments of childhood” as I wrote at the time.

This summer, for finanical reasons, Quiver decided to close down the small landscape design business he’s had for the last four years. The challenge of finding a job to use his incredible design and construction skills has been difficult in these times, and he has been so diligent and humble in the process. Still, it represented the loss of his dream (at least temporarily), the loss of his control over a very full “Daddy” schedule, and I suppose the loss of some confidence in his own decisions.

With the weight of loss, how can I find a way to be grateful?

As I’ve forced myself to look at that question in black and white as opposed to in the hazy abstract of my mind, I realize it’s shamefully easy. For, these things are true:

The loss is not as great as some have experienced this year.

Dad can walk. Dad can speak. Dad can think. My parents can spend the night with us and keep their grandchildren on a day like today. They can travel with us to the zoo. They can laugh. We can visit the farm and enjoy it’s carefree experiences. We have them.

Quiver has work. He can play despite the stress. He can give baths at night and read stories. We have a home we enjoy. Our gifts are vibrant. They are healthy and growing–laughing and singing and dancing. We are here. We are alive. We are together.

We are blessed. And to recognize blessing is perhaps the most treasured of disciplines. Yes, there’s that ugly word again. As I sum up these 12 Days, I’m not at the same uninhibited place of joy I was last year. But, I AM at a place of joy–once again at a deeper, more tested and, therefore, richer place of joy. And I find it’s very natural to say “thank you”– to God, to one another, to new friends, to old ones, even to loss. The lesson of these 12 Days:

A thankful heart is a discipline that can flourish independent of circumstances.

Welcome to the special souped up Thanksgiving issue of The Tuesday Ten Twenty-Five! It’s a quick rundown of 25 little (or big) things–silly and profound–that I’m in love with this Thanksgiving season. By all means, enjoy yourselves.

1. Little Drummer Boy–your remarkable storytelling and trips to the “hug store”

2. Squiggle Bug–your unquenched spirit and tender heart

3. Baby Girl–your infectious smile and undaunted joy

4. Quiver–your steadfast hope, your gentleness and truth

5. Hershey’s chocolate bars

6. Big piles of leaves–and watching boys jump in them

7. Attention–giving and getting it

8. Kermit, the trusty laptop–I think I love you

9. Bedtime stories

10. The chance to make something right

11. Nacho cheese Doritoes–yep, still thankful for those

12. Books

13. Realizing it’s not as late as you thought it was

14. A Sonic Mocha Chip Java Cooler–saves many a frustrating moment

15. A good night’s sleep

16. Lamps and their ambient light

17. Old friends–the continuing gift of yourself after all this time

18. The Dave Matthews Band–just sayin’

19. “Coincidence”

20. Old issues of Dwell magazine–and by old I mean the ones from the last two months I haven’t gotten to

21. The quiet hours after 10pm

22. Clean, white, unlined paper

23. The Canon PowerShot–wowza!

24. Candy Corn–and doling it out before dinner

24. Honest conversation

25. The astounding and humbling power of words

Whew! I’m thinking through Wednesday’s post to sum up this year’s EyeJunkie experiment in giving thanks, and I think I need to lighten up a bit for a few days. So…

What’s a 12 Days of Thanksgiving without a few lists? You know the ones. The “what I’m thankful for” lists. I have an expanded Tuesday Ten one I’m brainstorming for tomorrow, but I thought I’d share a few things from the Thanksgiving Tree we’re decorating this year. I’ll admit, we haven’t been quite as faithful with the everyday part of it I had planned, but that’s usually the way it works. It’s been a fun experiment that excited the boys, which made me excited, too. They don’t really understand the concept of giving thanks completely. But, they’re learning. (Aren’t we all?) And, this has been a fun way to help them. For a celebration-junkie like myself, hearing them shout “our Thanksgiving Tree” as they ran toward their breakfast poptarts was enough incentive to add the tradition to next year’s November as well. Enjoy the fruit of our thanksgiving “ornaments!”

Little Drummer Boy:
Our Thanksgiving bracelets [the little tags we put on the tree that they enjoyed wearing on their arms first]
“I got to see the lions and tigers”
Our food
The little pumpkin [the one holding the “Thanksgiving bracelets”–it’s the little things, people]
Our new curtains [there’s my good catch in training]
G-Mo, Paw-T and Aunt B

Squiggle Bug:
Our family of scarecrows [the ones sitting on our porch which we say goodbye to each morning]
The Thanksgiving Tree [that’s my celebration-junkie in training]
Our trucks [all 6,377 of them]
Riding in a racecar buggy at the grocery store [thank you, Kroger]
“I got to see the giraffes”

Baby Girl:
[we added things about Baby Girl we were thankful for, and she shouted them out in her own special language]
She is curious [translation: Mommy hasn’t had a heart attack (yet) while Baby Girl’s in this stage]
Baby Girl’s toys
She loves spaghetti [and we have the Spray ‘N Wash stock to prove it]
She’s almost grown up [apparently that will make her even more fun]
Her rash went away quickly [see item about emergency room]

Quiver:
Three gifts: LDB, Bug & Baby Girl
Good weather on our zoo trip
The work we have
God’s forgiveness
Mommy

Me:
Medicine [shortly after a weekend with our first two trips to the emergency room — minor problems, but traumatic (for Mommy) nonetheless]
God’s word
No rain on a particularly long day out of town for a meeting
A fun zoo weekend together with G-Mo and Paw-T
Saturdays

Yesterday I was privileged to sleep a little later. Quiver is normally an early riser anyway, and he was kind enough to keep a handle on the boys’ excitement while I slept. In case you’re wondering, two preschool boys whispering to one another “Shhh! Mommy’s asleep” is never as quiet as they intend it to be. But, I always love the conversations I hear through our walls when I’m in that almost-awake state.

Saturday’s conversation from the bathroom involved Quiver telling Little Drummer Boy the story of MY life over shaving and teeth brushing. I’m not sure how it started, but it was a much-simplified account of places and houses and times. LDB seemed to assume that he was present in Mommy’s tummy for everything before the world he now knows. I couldn’t help but smile as Quiver quickly attempted to move the conversation along from the explanation that no, LDB was not actually in Mommy’s tummy for the whole of my life. “Where was I?” If anybody wants to take that one, please go right ahead.

I can tell that Little Drummer Boy has been trying to wrap his mind around time and places lately. The boys and I recently drove through my hometown on our way somewhere, and he was amazed that Mommy lived there as a girl. He was amazed that Mommy ever lived anywhere but our house. He was amazed that Mommy was ever anything other than what he knows me to be. Sometimes I’m amazed myself, and when confronted with those other things, it can be quite a heart-searching ride. Last week he asked me WHEN I was a girl. My first reaction was:  17 seconds ago, never, too many years gone by, and all of the above. My answer was “a while back.” That’s the best I could do at a weary 10:16pm when all the really profound questions come out of his mind and all the really dumbfounded answers come out of mine.

At their young ages, my gifts are sort of in a perpetual state of now that I sometimes envy. Last weekend’s trip to the zoo could just as easily have been this morning. Saturday can always be tomorrow morning. They are slowly growing to treasure experiences, to remember them and place them in context, to see their impact on the structure of life. I find myself growing in that same way again.

This Thanksgiving season, I’ve been looking at the signposts in my life–those moments and situations, like the crescent moon, when I realized “I don’t have the whole picture, but I know it’s there.” Putting those experiences in context, I can see how much bigger a life is that one single decision, than a series of decisions–how much bigger God is. The path from point A to B sometimes detours through points C to Z, and we are quick to call the pitstops “mistakes.” We find ourselves somewhere we never thought we’d be, and in assessing the destination, we overlook the path.

I am so thankful that God is a God who reveals Himself often most eloquently and immediately in times of wandering. I’m so thankful that He isn’t found only at the destination, but at all points in between.

The song is true. Often the times you lose your way are the times when you find out who you really are and what you’re about. When you realize you’ve overlooked something, sometimes you learn how to really see. The “wrong turns” in my life are moving me toward a more humble way of seeing the world and the people in it–a real view that can’t coexist with cliches and simplistic truisms, a view where faith MUST meet the road. It’s a blessing that’s been hard-wrestled. And I’m thankful for it.