I think we have lost the very meaning of Thanksgiving.
We set aside a day every year at the end of November, and we call it a day to give thanks. Then we use it to sit around a table or in the living room in front of the television eating way too much, and we offer a quick prayer of thanks, and call it done.
We spend more time cheering our team, sitting in a deer blind, or getting a jump on Black Friday shopping than we do actually pausing to be thankful.
So many are too removed from the concept to even consider giving thanks.
I mean, how do you give thanks when the past year brought your dad being killed in a motorcycle accident? How can you be thankful when what 2019 brought you was your precious daughter being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and the horror that followed? How can you even think of being thankful when you are feeling the effects of chemo treatments? How is it possible to be thankful, when there is an empty seat at the table?
I have spent the last year wondering such things after the loss of my wife last year. It was a year filled with days of anger, days of tears and sadness, and even days of a depression so deep I could not function at all.
Even today, as these words are being typed, there is a struggle to find peace.
