“Give Hanks” – or – When life hands you lemons…without a “T”

November has been so beautiful this year.  I think that’s easy for me to say that, because we still don’t have snow on the ground yet!  Yippee!  Woo Hoo!!  Anything that makes our typically looooong winters up here not seem so long is wonderfully welcome!

Here in Canada, we celebrate Thanksgiving in October, but that doesn’t keep some of us from celebrating it again in November.  🙂  We have some American friends coming to visit us for American Thanksgiving next week and we will be eating turkey, and dressing, and sweet potato casserole, and green bean casserole…all over again!  Y’all wanna come??

So do I have you wondering why in the world I titled this blog post “Give Hanks?”  Well, let me explain…

Last year I bought a “Give Thanks” burlap pennant/banner when Joe and I were in the states celebrating our 30th anniversary…well, when I brought it home and opened it up – anxious to hang it over our fireplace in the living room – this is what I saw:

GIVE HANKS??!!  Whaaaaa??? (and no offence to all the Hanks in the world. 😉 )

Oh my! what to do!  I bought it in the states…I live in Canada…so no taking it back for one with a “T!!”  sigh.

After the initial shock of a very major, seemingly unfixable typo, we did the only thing we could do…laugh hysterically!!!  Then I just folded it back up and put it back in the bag, and packed it away with all my other Fall decorations.  (Note:  I so didn’t have the brains to try and figure out a solution to something so not important.)

Fast forward almost one whole year.

This year in July, while in Idaho for a family camp, I went to Joann Fabrics, and while I was walking around trying not to buy every single thing (not really…but almost!), I saw these hanging there in all their glory:

And Mitzi had a rare “light bulb” moment.  Yes she did!!  Grabbing a “G” and a “T” I couldn’t wait to go home and work on my “Give Hanks” banner!

So, my friends, this is what I did when life handed me lemons…without a “T” –

  …drum roll please…

TA DA!!  Give Thanks!!

In ALL things.  Even when life hands you lemons without a “t.” 😉

Granted, giving thanks when your burlap banner is missing a letter is well, laughable.  Literally.

But what do we do when our lemons in life look more like cancer.  Or a sudden death.  Or losing your job.  Or your friend(s) turns against you.  Or financial difficulties.  Or marital problems.  Or you’re dealing with serious physical/health problems…or…you fill in the blank…

Then what?

Give thanks?

Really??

Several years ago, after my husband resigned from the church he had pastored for 11 years, I have to admit I had pictured in my mind how things would go –

*Visit friends and family in Houston for a few months; rest and get refuelled spiritually

*Move back to Canada and get all our stuff out of storage

*Start a new church in ___________ (the city were we felt the Lord wanted us)

*Live happily ever after, serving the Lord.

 

What really happened –

*Visited friends and family in Houston for a few months; rested and got refuelled spiritually

*Moved back to Canada

*Door closed to said city

*Stuff stayed in storage for over 3 years (stuff was damaged by rodents and mold/mildew)

*Moved into a church’s prophets chamber for 6 months, then

*Moved into a 2 bedroom, 1-1/2 bathroom duplex for “6-8 weeks”…actually lived there for 2 years…with 4 of our grown kids

Yes it was hard, but were there blessings? You better believe it!  God was so good to us and blessed us wherever we lived, with church folks that loved us and provided a roof over our heads and we enjoyed sweet, sweet fellowship, and so many more blessing from God.

But did you catch the “moved 2 times, 2 bedroom, 1-1/2 bathrooms…with 4 kids(!!), closed doors, most of our earthly goods in storage for over 3 years” part? On the first night we had moved into the 2 bedroom duplex, I sobbed for a solid hour in my closet.  Sobbed.  Hard.

Because I was ungrateful?  No.  Life was just handing me lemons without a “t” and it shook me up.  The little dreams I had of “how it would be” were fading away like a mist and I just needed to have a good cry.  Then for the next 2 years we lived in our cozy 2 bedroom apartment (at one point our daughter, son-in-law and grand baby moved in with us for a month or two! Talk about cozy!  Did I mention there was only 1-1/2 bathrooms?  oh.  I did?), and we prayed for God to show us where He wanted us…and we waited.  And waited.  And waited.

Then one day the Lord opened wide the door for us to move and start a church exactly where He wanted us.  In His perfect time.

Was everything perfect and always peaceful while we were waiting for clear direction?  No.

If all we’d had to do was wait, that would have been difficult enough, but there were so many other things that made it even harder…  Some friends thought we were out of the will of God…and told us so.

We often got claustrophobic living in such close quarters with so many adults under the same roof.

Finances were extremely tight; and you know how much stress that adds to an already stressful situation.  Seemed the stress was pressing in on us from every side.

But you know what?  It’s through our hard times that our thanks, our praise, is like a sacrifice to our heavenly Father.  It was because of HIM that we could lift our heads and hearts towards heaven and praise Him.  Even in our difficult times.

Hebrews 13: 15,16 ~  By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.  But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

We all know the verse, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (I Thess. 5:18), but it’s totally another thing to put it into practice, huh?

Offering up praise to our God, because we know its right and because He is worthy.  Praising Him when it goes beyond our circumstances and our feelings.  He wants our praise more than anything else we can give Him.  Psalm 69:30, 31 tell us its so ~

I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.  

This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs.

In our difficult, stressful times, giving praise to our God doesn’t come natural.  Its something we give.  Something we reach down and grab ahold of, and we offer it up to our Heavenly Father.  Because its easy?  Nope.  Because its right.

Do you know someone that’s happy and joyful, even in their hard time?  And you’ve probably thought, “Oh, she’s just got an upbeat personality” or “It just comes easy for her to be joyful” or “yeah, she just had something bad happen, but, it must not have been too hard for her, because, well, just look at her!  She’s still smiling, for goodness sake!  My situation is way, way worse!  That’s why I can’t give thanks right now!”

Do you really think so?

Giving the sacrifice of praise is a choice.  Paul and Silas didn’t sing praise in the prison because they “felt like it” or because it came easy.  They did it because it was the right thing to do.  After being beaten and thrown into prison, they made the choice to raise their voices unto their God and thank Him, regardless of their surroundings and regardless of their situation.  (Makes “suffering through” 1-1/2 bathrooms for 2 years seem pretty lame, huh?  sigh. I’m a mess.)

In Psalm 147:14, David asks the Lord to bring his soul out of prison; so we may not be in a literal prison like Paul and Silas, but some circumstance has “beaten us up” and makes us feel bound by chains in a prison.  Its in these times, when we give thanks to God, that its a sacrifice of praise.  And it becomes a sweet smelling savour unto our God.  Because we “feel like it?”  No.  Because its right!  And because we believe God and His promises.

When Paul was in the storm (Acts 27), he chose to believe God regardless of how the storm raged, or how the people mocked him, or how hopeless things looked and felt.  He believed God and His promises (Acts 27:25).

Are you in a storm?  Stay in God’s Word.  Read it; believe it.  Count your many blessings, name them one by one!  Offer to God a sacrifice of praise!

When our son Benjamin was battling with cancer, there were many times we could look around us and see God’s goodness to us.  In the university hospital we spent weeks at, we saw so many children with much worse situations than Ben’s. {Does that mean it was easy for us to watch our 4 year old son suffer like he did?  Oh no.  Absolutely not.  But it did make things a little easier and the Lord always gave us something to thank Him for in those difficult months.}  We were thankful Ben didn’t have to suffer through chemo, like so many others did.  We were blessed with many friends to love us and pray for us through that time, when so many others in the hospital talked of how all their friends walked away when their child became ill.  And God was so gracious in taking Ben to Heaven in his sleep.  I always say, as hard as it was, God made it as soft as He could.

In the Hebrews and Psalms passage it says that our sacrifice of praise pleases God.  And oh how I want to please my God.  I really, really do.  Will you praise Him?  Even in your storm?

He is good.  And He is worthy!

Praise Him!!