I am thankful
A CIEMR
By Don Harward
I have a lot to be happy about and encouraged by this Thanksgiving. I am thankful for my wife and children, and grandkids, and friends, and even for many I do not know and have never met. I am thankful for living safely in the United States amongst mostly good people. I am thankful for the abundance that my life has shown me and I am thankful for having lived a life that I could scarcely have even imagined as a youth. But most of all I am thankful for God. I am thankful for his love for me and his grace which covers me, and forgives me for so many transgressions that I have not the mind to recall but for a small percentage of them. I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and I have feared evil, but his protection loomed ever greater than my small mind could comprehend. He is great and I am small and I am thankful for that.
I am thankful for so many of you. The children who bash about throwing their immature tantrums are nothing more than background noise to a symphony of good that rises from so many patriots, Police, warriors, Moms, fire fighters, and pastors. And from unsung heroes and farmers and lonely truck drivers a thousand miles from home. I don’t know them but people sit in bunkers ever vigilant over our nation protecting it from the darkness building like some evil modern day Mordor. There are some wonderful parents who right now shepherd over their little girls who will someday grow and become a loving wife to my sons and I am thankful for that. I am thankful for the smile that curls my mouth ever so slightly when I remember something funny that happened while I was serving with strong and gallant men in some faraway place.
I am thankful for young captains who matured and became Colonels and Generals who honor me with their friendship, and for the Sergeants who consider me a friend and look past all my youthful exuberance and mistakes. I am thankful that I made many mistakes, but more importantly, was allowed to learn a lesson and continue on in whatever endeavor or circumstance where they occurred. I am thankful for the hours of sermons that I could not understand, but connected just two dots in my mind which suddenly gave meaning to something I had pondered.
I am thankful I was able to give to someone who God pointed to in a moment where I “Got it” and realized the opportunity I had before me. I am very thankful for the hug that followed and the genuine tears in the eyes of someone who in the midst of her worry saw there is still good out there and to hope is not a hollow thing. I thank you Father for giving me the eyes to see such things, and I thank you for giving me the heart to show just a small part of your love to someone. I can’t really tell you how thankful I am about that!
I am thankful for the chill that ran all over me while I froze in a blind somewhere while hunting. I am thankful because in that moment an indelible image was being set in the mind of my son who sat beside me. I know that at some dark time in his future, he would draw on that moment and it would comfort him. In that way I would live on beyond the grave and for that I am thankful.
I am similarly very thankful that I can sit two little boys or girls who are my grandchildren on my lap because the very fact that they are there points to a long and blessed life of this mischievous grandfather. The way they look at me when I tell them a story, be it true or contrived, is a blessing, and it’s fun and it’s something that I am ever thankful for. Just the concept of a family is something I and millions all over this blue and green globe are oh so thankful for.
I am thankful I got to fly magnificent machines all over this earth, and for getting to know the wonderful people who worked on them or flew them as well. I am thankful for the young boy who was dying of cancer who I got to fly to Disneyland whose parents allowed me to pray for them and for him. Their look of deep, deep sorrow, barely covered with a veil of composed joy taught me so much about the human spirit and of the brevity of life. It made me think of a quote I read once that says, “Life is not about the number of breaths we take, but about the number of times our breath is taken away. Thank you Lord for giving people the mind to write a truth so eloquently.
I am thankful for the trials I have walked for they have given me a wisdom and have served to ever more prove that Jesus walked and walks with me. I can’t trip and fall without his arms reaching out before I strike the ground. I don’t understand it, but I know that I will understand it the moment following my final breath. How do I know that? Can’t tell you but I do. I am so thankful that this earthly life is not all that we have. If so what could we point to that ever remained true? What would we anchor our ships to that was not just another mooring that is destroyed in the gale of the storm that always approaches? Could I say I stand on the belief that my government was a good enough thing to always have had faith in? The government that enslaved blacks for decades and prevented them from voting? Would I stand with the nation that pushed Native Americans out of its way with no regard for them as humans?
Could I stand on a church run by man? If I were Catholic, could I stand fast with my pope who is a socialist and is laying the groundwork for normalizing the homosexual lifestyle? Or for another church wrought through and through with fraud and run by liars? Certainly none of that would stand muster and only a fool believes in such temporary things which pass in the night to be replaced by the next shiny thing. I am not thankful for Hollywood nor any influential organization which lofts itself up to self-importance and believes itself worthy of real honor.
No, I am anchored in an angry sea to the word and promise of God and that alone. I look to magnify his son to the rightful place that he has always had, and just for the promise that that day is coming, I am thankful. And in the fact that I have seldom had to stand alone in this tasking, but was often accompanied by strong men and women of courage who felt likewise.
I am but small and he is great and vast. I recognize that anything I was allowed to accomplish came from him, and that I exist for one of two reasons. I am here to either live a self-serving life or to serve him. I choose to serve. I willingly choose to do my best to amplify the king who is king above all and for my very small part, point to his greatness and glory. For that I am thankful, I am humbled, and in the doing of that, I am happy.
For the moment I am thankful. Not of everything that surrounds me, but thankful that a master creator has provided blinders to the darkness so that I can in any circumstance be thankful for what I see. It is indeed Thanksgiving! What are you thankful for?
