Thanksgiving

The hands reach and grasp and I feel their pull on my heart and on my legs and on my time.  I look down into their faces and see wants and needs and a vast unquenchable thirst for attention and love.

And I feel like I am at the edge of an abyss.

Blackness ready to suck me down.

My belly swells heavily before me, and my heart pounds wearily inside of me as I look around the house at the little and not so little shoes, socks, and sweaters strewn all around.

The promise of coffee in the kitchen is a distant comfort as I see the dishes piled in the sink and the laundry on the line through the window with the whir of another load finishing up in the machine.

I can't do this.  I can't go there to that job and leave this here waiting for me when I get back.  I can't walk through another day like this.  I can't run household and hold my position at the company where I work as well and struggle to get my home business off the ground.

I am weary and weak.

The night before weighed so heavily on me.  Pictures of the baby girls in China in dying rooms kept floating through my mind.

What can I, one person, do for them when I can't even keep myself together?  Can helping one child even make a difference for the thousands of other little girls who are abandoned?

Where is GOD?

I pull my husband to me and cry to him the pain that I see in the pictures and hidden camera videos and I ask what can we do?

He knows my heart, and he wraps his arms around me.

I know your soul is aching, he says.  God hears your cries.  God, too, knows the desires of your heart.

When the time is right, in HIS perfect plan, the answer will come.

Yes, you are right.  When the time is right, all will come together.

Take today, take now and give thanks in who you are and where you are.

So I look with new eyes and I see my oldest bending to pick up the stray socks

And I see the dirty dishes that pile in the sink because we have eaten well

And the linens flapping on the line because we have a place to sleep

And the diapers whirring to an end in the machine because we are blessed with strong healthy children.

And so I look down into the soft brown eyes of the little ones and kiss their upturned faces knowing that while I am gone, they will be well cared for by their grandmother, who loves them as I do.

And I know that this is just for a season and that the line of this day, this week, this month is but one small thread in the tapestry of the plan that God has for my life.

Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Jesus Christ.

  1 Thessalonians 5:18