Thanks-giving Stories

Stories Inside Us

Each one of us is a story. Most of our stories live inside of us, sometimes coming out to hang on the laundry line of our lives in tales and anecdotes and history. For we are – and we become – those stories. And consequently, we are more aware of who we truly are.

Here we are in the holiday time as we gather together for Thanksgiving. My story today is wrapped up in those 2 words: Thanks and Giving – but most especially Thanks.

One Thanksgiving Story

I am from a large, boisterous Navy family of seven children. We moved every few years, to a new house, new neighborhood, new school. But we children were always together, and we four girls even slept together in what we called the ‘girls dormitory’.

We had just moved again when I was in the 5th grade.

What I remember about that time was that I had pneumonia, and I landed in a Navy hospital ward. There was no special Ward for Children. There were twenty beds, ten to each side. I was the sole patient. Alone. No one else. No visitors allowed. It turned into two weeks. Getting a penicillin jab in my bruised bottom three times every day. Yes, I felt…quite… alone.

My mom sent me two books, one of which was Heidi, by Johanna Spyri. I lived with Heidi every day, coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose, and loving the little mountain-goat-girl and her Grandfather. I was together with them, in her world of little events that sprinkled her days. Though I didn’t have the words ‘refuge’ or ‘sanctuary’ in my vocabulary, I knew and reveled in that feeling inside me. Until… Heidi’s story took a turn. Heidi was taken away from her mountain home.

Alone, I felt her loneliness so keenly. I cried. So hard. Sobbing, shoulders shaking, snorting, nose running – like the river on which I wanted to float away. Thankfully, that river was like the mountain stream that brought Heidi back to her Grandfather, and all the people who loved her.

Story Lessons

Not surprisingly, when I finished reading Heidi’s story to the end, I was better. No cough, no congestion. I could go home.

Home! What a celebration I felt inside!

Just to be around the crowded, noisy dinner table with my big family. My refuge, my sanctuary. Home.

I was a child. As I said, I didn’t have those blessing words of ‘refuge’ and ‘sanctuary’ in my vocabulary. But I felt – I knew – I was in my safe haven. I was so thank-full to be home, gathered in the circle of my family again. The intense contrast of being alone in the hospital made me feel a deep, new appreciation for being together again.

For two years now, we have all been living the contrast of being apart, isolated, alone. We have felt it all, far too profoundly.

It is past time to gather together, to count our blessings together, like the Pilgrims who began this whole story.

The First Thanksgiving Story

When I taught primary school, we studied the Pilgrims’ story of their long, overcrowded and frightful voyage on the Mayflower, arriving in unkown Plymouth, suffering grim deprivations in their first horrible winter, when half of them died. They were destitute and bereft, cut-off from home. But then came Squanto, the Pawtuxet Indian who taught the city-dweller Pilgrims to plant and to find food from the sea; and he brought his Wampanoag Indian friends to help them build houses and shelters. They worked harder than they ever knew they could and reaped the joy of their Autumn harvest. The contrast between the destitute beginnings and the abundant harvest of food shared with new friends was intense. The Pilgrims gave thanks to God for their bountiful blessings.

I taught the children their song: “We Gather Together”: from the Pilgrims of old, who lived through desperate times, yet sang of their deep faith and gratitude.

Take time to listen to a beautiful rendition of this hymn by clicking on the title, above. It is by a group called, The Hymns Ensemble. Last year (2020) they found a way to sing this together even when isolated and far apart.

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessings.

Our hope ever brightens His Light to make known.

The dark and depressing will cease from distressing.

Sing praises to His name

He forgets not his own.

Stories of Thanks & Giving from Becoming Jesse

Jesse, too, finds the blessings of gathering together, over and over again.

But it is when he is alone, facing the unknown, that he learns one of his greatest lessons, and revels in the circle of love that finds him and gathers him up.

You can find this in Becoming Jesse at the end of the book.

No spoilers here. It is a spoiler to read the last Chapter: 30 – Circles.

Nevertheless, you can find Jesse’s Light Lessons – on my website Book Guide: Chapter 30, Circles, Becoming Jesse,

and feel the Love energies that gather around Jesse.