So many of y’all are thinking about last minute Thanksgiving preparations today, I’m sure. We get to go to my parents’ house, and after a few days of traveling, I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. For one thing, I don’t have to cook! I get to eat my mom’s delicious cooking. But for another, I didn’t know how I was going to be able to pull off anything for Thanksgiving. We made travel arrangements to go see my oldest bonus son graduate from Officer Candidate School. Our flight schedule had us flying back the night before Thanksgiving. How would I have time to cook, when we wouldn’t arrive back at the cabin until likely 2 or 3:00 in the morning? (I am obviously writing this before the trip!) Knowing we would be gone for three days meant I would not even be able to cook ahead. Because we were going to be traveling up to the cabin, I would have had to make everything and then freeze it; then pack it in coolers, and it was just too much thinking, quite frankly, to figure it all out, in addition to planning for the trip, itself. So I invited ourselves to my parents’ house.
And my Mom being her gracious self said absolutely, we could come. She would prepare a place for us at their table. And I know whatever she makes will be wonderful, and we will all enjoy eating it, together. As much as I love my mom’s cooking, it’s the togetherness part, I love the most. The memories we will all make laughing together will be what we think about, years from now. We likely won’t remember every single dish Mom makes, but we will remember the jokes and the joy.
“Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,” - Acts 2:46 (NIV)
This week is a wonderful time for all of us to think about our friends who are lonely. We need to show up for them.
A very sweet friend of mine told me a few weeks ago that she is terribly lonely. Her father died a few years ago and she is not close to anyone else in her family. She has a lot of friends, but she would never invite herself over to their homes, for Thanksgiving. We live over 1,000 miles apart, or I would have invited her to come eat with us.
But this conversation with her got me thinking. How many lonely people do we mistake for being “just fine” but they aren’t just fine? They put on a brave face, smile and seek ways to serve others, but are we serving them?
Do you know a widow or a widower who might not be eating with their family tomorrow? Could you maybe invite them to your house? What about a recently divorced or single friend? Have you checked on them and asked what their plans are? Pick up the phone and call them. I promise you … your heart will be overflowing as much, if not more, than theirs.
Last year at Christmas, this old man who lives on our street had been on my heart for quite some time. We barely knew him. We only knew he was about 90 years old based on the stories he told; his wife had passed away a good many years before, but when he rode his bicycle every evening and we were outside working, he always stopped to chat with us. He just wanted to talk about anything and everything. He would tell us, “you two are good company for me to keep.” So while sitting in my closet wrapping presents one day, Terry came up and asked me if I wanted to go with him to the hardware store? I told him absolutely, but I wanted to run an idea by him. I mentioned our elderly neighbor and said, “What would you think about inviting him over Christmas day to eat with us?” We decided right then and there, the next time we saw him, we would give him our telephone numbers and invite him over.
I want you to know that when the Holy Spirit places an idea on your heart, He provides the how/when/where, too. As soon as we drove out of our driveway to head to the hardware store, there was our elderly neighbor, pedaling his bike in our direction. Now, I would say, “what a coincidence, huh?” But we know with God, there are no coincidences. Terry pulled over and asked him, “Mr. Boyd! Do you have plans for Christmas day?” He looked at us and said, “When you get to be as old as I am, you don’t plan too far in advance, because you just might not wake up!” We all laughed, then we said, “Well if you don’t have plans, we would be honored to have you come eat with us, Christmas day!”
That precious man showed up. He did not have much of an appetite due to some undiagnosed illnesses at the time (we later learned he had cancer) but we were able to make a to-go plate for him and he called us to tell us he ate on that food for over a week. While he told us stories about serving our country and traveling the world, every single one of us hung on his every word. But what he later told me broke my heart. He said, “I haven’t been in a home around a table full of people in … well, I can’t recall when. It did my heart good to be around you young people.” Shortly after that, he moved to Arkansas to be cared for by an old, family friend, as he battled cancer.
I need to do more of that. I need to be more aware of the lonely people who are right in front of us, and invite them over for a meal. It doesn’t have to be Thanksgiving or Christmas; it can be Taco Tuesday or Curry Chicken Thursday. But Thanksgiving is a great time for us to be more sensitive to the people who are alone. Let’s be mindful of the people we love who are lonely. We can’t do much, but we can certainly set a place at our tables for them, and break bread in our homes, and eat together with glad and sincere hearts.
I am so grateful for each of you.