Thanks!

-Pastor Melissa Fain-

Usually, when we as a nation get to this time of year, we collectively sit back and give thanks for everything we have to be thankful for. Some of us might not have a lot, but most can recall something we can raise up in gratitude.

Then came this year. 

I don't know about you, but being asked to find gratitude in 2020 is like a parent asking an ungrateful child to tell an adult "thank you" for something they didn't want in the first place.

"Thank you for filling the cavity in my mouth. I'm sooooo grateful."

You get what I mean.

Only, maybe we do need to step back a moment, and see things a little bit differently. 

I'm not going to suggest this was best year ever. No one is going to recall how 2020 became the signature year people will be making beautiful Hallmark memories for years to come.

I do believe this will be the year we talk about systems breaking. To be clear, nothing's broken that wasn't going to break eventually. There were structural cracks. They weren't obvious to the untrained eye but they were there. It's why we can't just put it all back and go on like nothing has happened. Something will never be the same again.

So much could have happened this year, but never did. We could have reinvented how things are done: music, art, theater. Yet we are so invested on rebooting pretty much everything, we forget there are unborn stories waiting to be told. Reboots suck the life out of that potential and takes it's place. We are killing our future to relive our past.

So, thanks!

But I am grateful.  I'm not a fool. I can post this without fear some government is going to kill me for my words. I live in a home. I eat every day. Sometimes those simple blessings are enough. Is it always fair? Nope. Welcome to life. Thank God I can name that! God isn't going to smite me because I name something as unfair. Jesus spent countless words naming things that were unfair, and then calling on us to change those things. There's a whole book about renaming unfair things: Job. For that, I am grateful. It's so exhausting pretending unfair things are fair. 

So what am I getting at? I'm thankful. I'm thankful for unfiltered truth. I'm thankful for getting through 2020 in relatively one piece. I'm thankful that I'm called to speak truth to rebooted world. The world's a mess, but God is good.