For two years, my husband’s job afforded us the opportunity to live along the southern coast of Spain. We were part of a small group of Americans residing in a mainly British community, and we enjoyed the opportunity to participate in customs and traditions belonging to a variety of cultures. But we also clung to some of the traditions that we had brought with us.

Especially important to us were the celebrations of Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July, truly American holidays. So during the second year that we were together in Spain, the small American contingency decided to share a covered dish Thanksgiving meal at our home on the Sunday prior to the actual holiday. In making our plans, one of the other women and I each offered to prepare a turkey, while the other families agreed to bring side dishes.

I considered myself a seasoned pro (of sorts) at turkey purchasing in Spain, after my experience the year before. While whole ducks and rabbits were common at the meat counters, whole turkeys were rare birds, even in the modern SuperMercado. So a week prior to that first Thanksgiving, I made a special trip to the city of Algeceiras to place my order for a whole turkey with the grocery store’s meat manager. Returning to the store the day before Thanksgiving to retrieve the turkey, I was excited to be handed a turkey that was plucked and nicely packaged.

Actually, the meat manager and I were both rather pleased with ourselves, he for being able to fill my special order and I for having successfully accomplished the entire transaction in Spanish. I was ecstatic to see that I was actually getting what I had intended to order, even though it had one drawback. The turkey was very small, more the size of a big American chicken (which I would later learn is the typical size of Spanish turkeys). But the small size did not deter my exuberance. At least I had a turkey, and we could have a “real” Thanksgiving dinner.

But the next morning, I was reminded that things are not always as we think them to be. Unwrapping the turkey from its packaging, I lifted it up and flipped it over. As I did, the turkey’s bald head, dangling by its long neck that was still attached to its body, came swinging out from underneath the turkey like a pendulum, putting both a startled look on my face and a little panic in my voice. So much for me thinking that I had everything under control.

So the second Thanksgiving, as I agreed to prepare one of the two small turkeys that would be needed to feed the dozen or so Americans who would be present for the dinner, I determined to avoid any further Thanksgiving surprises. This time I specifically ordered the turkey sin cabeza (without head) and checked it thoroughly for any “extras” after getting it home. Relieved not to find any surprises, I once again felt in control of the situation, pleased that everything was going according to plan. The illusion would not last long.

When the Sunday of our big dinner arrived, warm temperatures and typical cloudless skies of southern Spain made the day appear promising. Walking into the small, local chapel that morning for English services, we greeted our friends and were discussing the upcoming dinner, when someone suggested that we invite the Anglican priest, who led the worship service, to join us for our meal.

Agreeing that the idea was a good one, my husband and I proceeded to invite the priest while we were waiting for the service to begin. Surprised and delighted, he accepted wholeheartedly. Then, a few minutes later, he turned the tables, surprising us. Standing before the congregation, the priest announced with great enthusiasm that the Americans had invited everyone (e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e) to join them for an American Thanksgiving dinner following the service!

While most of the chapel erupted in applause, the Americans were shell-shocked. Their jaws dropped open as they turned their eyes in unison to stare at my husband and me in disbelief. We were all wondering the same two things: “Where had that invitation come from?” and “How in the world would we feed everyone?” We didn’t even know how many “everyone” would be. All we knew was that company was coming to dinner, and we were unprepared. So much for thinking (once again) that we had everything under control.

Scurrying home after the service, we began preparing the best that we could. The Americans arrived right behind us, carrying folding tables and lawn chairs, in addition to their food contributions. Right behind them, our guests began arriving, carrying customary bottles of wine for their hosts.

Entering the house via the front door, our guests proceeded through the living room to the turkey carving table that began the buffet line. After receiving some turkey, they helped themselves to the side dishes and then departed out the kitchen door to sit and eat at the tables and chairs that had been set up in the backyard.

As the meal got underway, the Americans were a little nervous, to say the least, not knowing what to expect nor how many people we might be able to feed. With guests arriving faster than the buffet line was moving, the line soon backed up out the front door. Even friends who had not been in church that morning came, somehow having received the invitation from others.

As the line increased, so did the nervousness of the Americans. Casual chatter among the hosts decreased as we practically held our breaths in trepidation of running out of food. At one point, an American friend pulled me aside to ask the question that we were all wondering: “What are we going to do?” Looking at the line that was still increasing, I could only shrug. I had already checked the refrigerator and the freezer for any foods that could be prepared quickly, and there were none.

Meanwhile, my husband, carving one of the two chicken-sized turkeys, asked each guest if he or she wanted white or dark meat. To the occasional reply of “Both, please,” he would just smile and say, “Sorry, it’s one or the other,” trying his best to graciously stretch the turkey.

But as conscientious as he was in the turkey’s distribution, it and the rest of the food continued diminishing as the line kept coming. From outside, I could hear pieces of conversations regarding men getting more tables and chairs, as the ones on hand were filling up.

Finally, though, the end of the line did appear, and eventually the last guest was served. With sighs of great relief, we rejoiced as we proceeded to fix our own plates by picking the turkey carcasses clean and scraping out the remnants of the side dishes. We could barely believe our “good luck” in everything having turned out so well.

But when we stepped outside to join the others, our self-congratulations turned to disbelief. The backyard was literally filled with people, who were sitting and enjoying one another’s company as they finished their meals. Don’t ask any of us who were present how it happened (we only know that it did), but seventy people ate Thanksgiving dinner that day from two small birds and a handful of side dishes.

Seventy! The mathematics just did not compute. There was no way that we had prepared enough food to feed seventy people. We could only conclude the seemingly impossible:  God, not we, had hosted the meal. He had provided.

While we had perceived the priest’s error to be our problem, God must have seen it to be His opportunity to adjust our thinking and to reveal His glory—–a scenario that has played out innumerable times between God and man. The real error had been ours, not the priest’s. While we had focused on our limitations, issuing an invitation to a single individual, the priest must have heard God’s invitation welcoming everyone to come to God’s Table, where the supply is without limit.

The blessing to us who were “in the know” on that day was that God had allowed us to witness His Provision in such a dramatic way. Had we purposefully planned to feed dinner to seventy people, we would have undoubtedly prepared the meal for days ahead of time, wanting to be “perfect” hosts. After accomplishing such a task, we would have also undoubtedly patted ourselves on our backs, taking the credit for all of our hard work. We would have still said grace and blessed the food, thanking God, but not with the same awe that God generated in our hearts at this Thanksgiving meal. Nor would we have had the same recognition of God’s Goodness and intentions toward us.

While our plates did not overflow that day with the gluttony that has become synonymous with Thanksgiving in this country (both at our tables and in our stores), everyone had sufficient. There was enough to meet everyone’s needs. No one was left out. By contributing the food that we had on hand to the welfare of all, God returned the blessing of our offering back upon us all. Freely we had been given, freely we gave, and freely God multiplied.

As we ate and communed together that day, unity enveloped us. We had come from various nations and geographic locations, but we were like-minded, of one accord with one another and with God. The camaraderie was God-created, as He filled our hearts, as well as our stomachs. We were truly brothers and sisters in Christ, as God had made us to be.

The experience of God-reality is a gift from God that comes through God’s Provision of Jesus Christ, the Bread of life, who is life. By communing with God through the body (bread) and blood (wine) of Jesus at the Communion Table, which has been prepared by God, we gain greater insight into the love of God for all of mankind. Our minds are opened and our hearts are filled as awareness of God’s Presence unites us in singular purpose:  the worship of our most generous God.

God conquers our meager thinking with His generosity, revealing the Truth of who He is:  the Provider of all. His Provision to us is more than enough, empowering us to share with one another as God shares:  from the heart, without selfish ambition.

Unity with God in our thinking and purpose is all that mankind ever really needed to live God’s way, and God knew/knows it. That is why He gave Himself to us, placing Himself both among us (Jesus) and in us (Holy Spirit) to provide what the world cannot:  abundant Life. Through our acceptance of God by the Truth of Himself that He provides, our lives are transformed one at a time, making the world a little more like its Creator. We are compelled by our awareness of God’s generosity to give what is needed, where it is needed, when it is needed. In knowledge that God is caring for us, we are enabled to care for others, not from our meager rations, but from God’s ample supply. We learn to depend upon God to fulfill His desires that He implants in us, allowing us to experience the joy of both receiving and giving without reservation.

God’s Presence, both in us and with us, is the most generous Gift that could ever be given or received. The Truth of the Gift of God may be more than the world at large can swallow, choosing instead to disbelieve the Goodness of God that He has set before us all. But to those who have believed and received God, the experience of His Goodness in this life is just a taste of what is yet to come. 

I don’t know what God has prepared to serve at His Great Banquet Feast one day (See Revelation 19:9), as we come together from every tongue and nation before the Throne of God (See Revelation 7:9). But I am certain that it will be more than two scrawny birds or a few small fish (See Matthew 15:34).

And I won’t be surprised in the least if our mouths are too full of praise and thanksgiving to eat a single bite.

“May God give you of heaven’s dew and of earth’s richness-
-—an abundance of grain and new wine.“  (Genesis 27:28)

 

     [HOME]          [TOP]          [LEFTOVERS THAT AREN’T]         [CONCLUSIONS]

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THOUGHTS ON “THE LESSON OF THE THANKSGIVING”

Louise Burkholder on April 12, 2013 at 9:49 pm said:  “Cathy, Betty L. forwarded your lovely Thanksgiving devotion. It brings back warm memories of Spain and how time and again God provided so generously. Hope all is well with you and yours.”

Betty Lorick on April 12, 2013 at 4:58 pm said:  “Your message is written so vividly that my stomach actually got butterflies for you as you tried to stretch your food to feed the 70 guests. This is a powerful message which I cannot wait to forward to my friends and family, just as soon as I return to my email. Thank you for sharing this story with all of your readers. We still miss you and your family but are so pleased to stay connected through your writings. Our love to you and to all of your family.”

 

The summer following my high school graduation, I received an invitation to attend freshman orientation at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. I had been accepted for fall admission, and my grandparents, who were going to visit their friends in North Carolina, were planning to drop me off in Raleigh to begin the fall term.

But attending orientation was another matter. Raleigh was a far distance from my home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and money was tight. While orientation would be nice to attend, it was neither mandatory nor necessary. I could have bypassed orientation and jumped straight into college life that fall. But something in me wouldn’t allow me to do that. Beyond explanation, and in ways that opposed my normal personality, I adamantly insisted that I needed to go.

After some deliberation, my mother agreed to allow me to make the trip, and she purchased a round-trip bus ticket for me, enabling me to do so. On the day of my departure, my family drove me into downtown Pittsburgh and waited with me at the bus terminal until I was safely on-board.

I remember little about the actual trip, except that I had to change buses during the middle of the night in Washington, D.C. When I arrived in Washington, the huge terminal was nearly deserted. As I walked through the terminal on my way to the restrooms, I remember seeing only an employee or two behind the counter area, but no one else in the vicinity.

To access the restrooms, which were below ground, I had to go down a flight of stairs that were designated solely for the restrooms. Carrying my suitcase down the stairs, I entered the ladies’ room. When I had finished there, I opened the door and stepped out onto the small landing area at the bottom of the stairwell.

There I came to an abrupt stop. I could go no further. My path forward was blocked by a dozen or so male teenagers of questionable appearance and intent. They were standing motionless, apparently waiting for me to come out.

When I did, the fellow closest to me (the only one whose face showed any expression) grinned insincerely, and he began to verbally harass me with questions regarding whether or not I needed a boyfriend. For the second time in recent weeks, I heard myself speaking and acting in an adamant manner that was not my norm. Returning the fellow’s gaze with one of my own, I defiantly slung retorts back at his insolent questions and stood my ground.

I had little choice. My options were limited, to say the least. Going forward was impossible, and going backward would have made matters worse. I could stand, or I could fold.

The situation in which I found myself was similar to that of the Israelites during their exodus from Egypt. (See Exodus 14) With their path forward blocked by the Red Sea and Pharoah’s army closing in from behind, they were stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. So was I.

But the similarity between my situation that night and the Israelites in their predicament did not end there. The adamant spirit that arose within me during the confrontation outside of the restroom seemed to be responding to the same instructions that God had issued to the Israelites through Moses.

“…Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (Exodus 14:13, 14)

Having essentially no time to think and nowhere to go, I (as had the Israelites) simply stood, confronted by evil.

Evil is a reality that continually threatens our safety, as well as our futures. It is always lurking, waiting to take advantage of our vulnerable moments and then harassing us in attempts to pinpoint our weaknesses. Even we who live in relative safety from “serious” (however one might choose to personally define “serious”) evil, still suffer from the negative consequences of others’ wrongful words and actions, as well as from our own.

Our enemy is not the people who deliver the evil, but the evil itself—–the entity of thoughts, words and actions that oppose the nature and will of God. Evil’s ploy is to confront all of mankind repeatedly with the temptation to doubt God, to cause us to disbelieve to some degree in God’s Goodness, if not in His existence. The doubt that evil initiates is intended to undermine mankind’s faith in God, causing each of us to “fold” in defeat when events don’t line up with our personal expectations of what a “good” God would/should do.

That night in Washington, as I stood, the “miracle” of deliverance from evil’s intentions (whatever they may have been) unfolded before me in a manner similar to the way in which the Israelites’ miracle of deliverance had unfolded before them many years earlier. The God of the past proved Himself to be the same God of the present—–my present.

For no apparent reason, the “leader of the pack” of teenage boys suddenly stopped his incessant barrage of remarks, clamming up, as if he had been muzzled. Then, as I watched in silence, he smirked in a way that must have epitomized Pharaoh’s attitude when Pharoah (in belief that he was the one determining the Israelites’ fate) gave the Israelites permission to leave Egypt. Intentionally feigning chivalry, the so-dubbed pack leader bent his left arm across his abdomen, bowed at the waist and made an exaggerated sweeping motion toward the stairway with his right arm, indicating that I was free to go.

When he did so, every member of the “pack” took one step backward, creating a pathway right through their midst. Carrying my belongings, I walked through the “sea” that had parted before me, climbed the stairs and never looked back. God had made a way, and I took it, walking into freedom.

I share this event with an excruciating awareness that other individuals, encountering similar situations, have not always fared as well as I did that night. Some have endured painful trauma, and others have not survived at all.

I cannot explain why the “sea” parted before me that night in Washington, while at other times and places it has not. But I do know that had it not done so on that particular night, my life and the lives of some other individuals would have been vastly different. For the following morning, having arrived on campus in the early dawn hours, as I sat alone in a dorm lobby waiting for the campus to awaken, in walked the young man who would later become my husband.

Had I ended up in a hospital (or worse) the night before, I would have missed my appointment with my future, a future of God-given goodness that would be regularly confronted by the evil that had backed down on this particular occasion. Evil is relentless. Of that we have no doubt. Yet, in God’s proven goodness and faithfulness, we do repeatedly doubt.

The Israelites had the same difficulty choosing to trust God that we today encounter. Even after miraculously passing through the Red Sea and receiving numerous other miracles from God, they repeatedly displayed their double-mindedness concerning Him. Even with their minds bouncing back and forth between good and evil, they (as do we) continued living solely by the abundant grace of God that He provides. All the while, they continued accepting various degrees and forms of evil into their lives, failing to recognize the true nature of the evil that incessantly tempted them.

Their acceptance of the doubt with which they were tempted led them to house the very evil to which they were adamantly opposed.

To stand victoriously against evil’s temptations, the Israelites (as do we today) would have to entrust both their present and their future to God alone. Times may change, but evil does not. Every moment of every day, whether we realize it or not, we are all forced by evil’s presence to “stand,” trusting God, or to “fold,” defeating ourselves by enabling doubt to persuade us from the Truth.

But to trust God with our present and our futures, we must first trust God in our pasts, without exception, no matter what has occurred. We must believe that along whichever “escape routes” God has carried (is carrying and will carry) us, that those routes have delivered (are delivering and will deliver) us into the futures that were (and are yet) ours to possess. We live in a world of continual choices that must be made, and God works within our collective decisions (be they for good or for evil) for our good and His glory, whether we believe so or not.

The One and Only True God is the God who reached down from on high with His Mighty Right Arm (His Son), working salvation for us (See Psalm 98:1 & Titus 2:11-14), eternally parting the “sea” of sin and death into which evil hounds us. This One True God, who made a “path” big enough for all of us to follow, is the same God who can be trusted with every lesser aspect of life. He is the God of all who trust Him with their personal salvation through Jesus Christ, forbidding doubt to encroach upon God’s rightful territory:  us.

We are God’s children, His creation, His gift of life, embodied in His Son through our faith in the finished work of the Cross. Without faith, the “sea” does not part and deliverance does not come.

Jesus is mankind’s only viable option. He is God Incarnate and the Ultimate Escape Plan, the only Way both out and up. He is the only One who can and who does deliver us from all evil–—the evil that He conquered for us. Using His very life, Jesus cleared an escape route, along which we can follow Him into true freedom–—freedom from all doubt of God, both now and forever.

A life free from doubt of God is possible, not by our efforts (that has been proven for all time), but by God’s grace in Christ Jesus. Jesus is the Victor over every doubt—–every dead end that evil attempts to fabricate. He is the One who delivers us into everlasting, loving relationships with God, our Father, via the knowledge of Truth, against which the temptation of doubt is powerless.

Jesus, our Living Savior, is the Only One, who not only claims to know the way, but who has walked His Way out of death, escaping from evil’s eternal hell. The proof is in His absence from His Tomb and in His Presence in our lives. Jesus lives among us because His escape route works. By following Jesus, we are led into the everlasting life that Jesus is living. We experience the life with God that God always has intended for us to live.

All other supposed ways to heaven, nirvana, inner peace, tranquility, satisfaction, etc. (despite the allure of their worldly packaging) are personal death traps, filled with empty promises that die along with those who choose to live by them. Their promises (in this life and the next) are as dead as they are.

Every one of them is a literal dead end, leaving no way out.

Jesus Christ is the Only Way to escape both evil’s presence and its future.

.

“…how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?”  (Hebrews 2:3a)

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THOUGHTS ON “THE LESSON OF THE PARTING”

Cathy Butler on March 29, 2013 at 10:21 am said:  “God certainly had a better plan for you that night… and Keith! You have accomplished good works for His Kingdom, with even more to do! Thank you, with love.“