Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Dan and I just finished cleaning up from the HUGE mess I made in our kitchen making cornbread dressing to take to Thanksgiving dinner. We're going to share the day with friends from church here in Albuquerque, and they are graciously allowing me to bring cornbread dressing, even though I am probably the only person who is going to want to eat it. Apparently, it's also unusual in Albuquerque to purchase just the inside parts of a turkey and not the turkey itself. (You have to call it "the inside parts of a turkey" because if you say "giblets" they look at you like you are speaking Swahili. Alas, the clash of cultures.)

Anyway, as I was crumbling up cornbread earlier amid all the dirty pots and pans, I was thinking about everything we have to be thankful for. It's a long list this year, too long to write down. It would just go on and on. But I realized that the one thing all the things I am thankful for have in common is mercy. God's mercy to us this year has been infinitely beyond what we would have even asked for if we had known beforehand how much we were going to need it. It sort of makes me laugh when I think about how I have prayed this year, and compare it with how good God has been to us. It's like what happens when you tell kids they can ask for anything. If kids were capable of thinking ahead and knowing what they will really need in life, they would ask for college scholarships or a million bucks or a reliable car. But they always ask for something immediate and not that hard for any adult to give them, like candy or a toy. I've kind of decided that's how we are with God. We can't even comprehend how vast our needs are in the first place, and even when we do know we need something, we still can't imagine how infinitely capable God is of giving it to us. So we ask for the things that we can wrap our minds around: that our families will be safe and we'll do well at our jobs and that we'll be able to pay our bills. And meanwhile, God gives us so much more than that. It's mind-boggling.

So this year, I am thankful for mercy.

"Now to Him who is able to do exceeding, abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen."
Ephesians 3:20 and 21

Love to you all. Be thankful.