Thanksgiving Prayers

Well, here it is the day after Thanksgiving and I am sitting at the computer—at work! Dan and Bob are both out of town so I became designated “check hander outer.” It’s really ok because I don’t go shopping on this day. I tried it once and got some good deals, but it wasn’t worth the insanity and frustration so I have made it a personal policy to avoid the maddening holiday rush on Black Friday.

I’m not sure why I said I’d be her from 8 until 12. No one will be up that early. I’m going to use my time to write some devotionals and study guides for the church web page. I’ve got the music going and an extra sweater on (our building is an OLD school building and is notoriously hard to heat) so I’m good to go.

Thanksgiving dinner was nice. Nelson and I went to his parents’ house in Toledo. Mom always has a nice dinner. Nelson’s paternal grandmother was there. She is 91 and suffers with Alzheimer’s. She was having a good day. Beth and Asher had dinner and spent the day with Ron’s family. Ann was at home with a very sick little Penelope.

Ann probably wouldn’t have joined us, even if Pnel wasn’t sick. Last week she determined that she has had enough, tried enough, and was now done with that marriage. The news rocked Travis momentarily and he said and did some things indicating his desire to keep the marriage together, but I think in Ann’s mind and heart it was clearly too little too late. She decided that she probably should have trusted her gut more and not gotten married at all. The trouble was she began to act irrationally and impulsively and it has taken a considerable amount of coaching from her father and I to get her to slow down and think about her actions. My last advice was that she needs a better plan to get out of this marriage than she did to get into it. That seemed to make sense. It’s just so terribly hard to watch this and feel so helpless to do anything for them.

I had to chuckle at myself on the way to and from Nelson’s folks yesterday. You may recall that I am the ultimate weather weenie and I loathe traveling in inclement weather—especially snow! So I prayed, “Please God, don’t let it snow on Thanksgiving.” I was quite elated, as I monitored the weather, that it appeared God had taken pity on my lack of driving courage and the weather forecast was calling for partly sunny and a high in the 50’s!! Yea God!

Well, that’s what I thought as I was driving out of Atown. As we got about 12 miles north of town, we could see a dark ominous cloud forming just at the tree line. Fog. Didn’t think much of it at first, I mean it was after 11 in the morning, surely it will be burning away. Wrong. We were in pea soup so thick that you couldn’t see two telephone poles ahead. And talk about idiot drivers. No, they didn’t need their lights on to see, but sure would have been nice to have them on so that I could see them! Sheesh. We drove in the fog for the next hour. Then the sun refused to shine the rest of the day.

Nelson and I stopped over at his grandmother’s house on our way out of town. The house has sold and the family is having an estate sale to clear out the remainder of Grandma’s things. I got an old graniteware turkey roaster (cream and green, my favorite) and a footstool. While I was sitting in the car, waiting for Nelson to finish his good-byes, I could see the fog creeping into the neighborhood. By the time we got to the expressway we were socked in. Nelson felt it would be easier to go home by way of the turnpike so I complied. It was so thick I could barely see two car lengths in front of me. He determined I should be okay to drive since it’s a straight shot and he can see in fog. Unique logic, I think. I did some quick internal weighing out of my situation. I was petrified and tense beyond description, but couldn’t imagine how bad I would be if I wasn’t driving—it’s all about control. I set the cruise on 65mph, pointed the car in the right direction, and started praying again. That’s when I had to chuckle.

“I guess I wasn’t specific enough in my prayers, God. Thank you so much for not having it snow and impede my journey home. I know this fog isn’t going away so help me get through this now. I don’t have any conditions to throw on this. I’m not going to make any desperate promises. I just need your help, your assurance, and no deer running tonight.”

Just one more lesson on how to pray specifically, to ask for exactly what I need, what I want.

I was in horribly thick fog with cars flying by me on the turnpike. When we left the turnpike to turn south and head towards home, the cars were much more cautious—slower than even I wanted to go. About five miles from home the fog lifted and I rolled into town quite happy to see my little burg on the horizon.

I slept well—like a log. And surprisingly when I woke up this morning there was no tension or soreness from the tense ride home. Be sure, I thanked God for that this morning!

Have a great shopping day.