The Gifts of Giving Thanks
by Ryan Bettwy
If you are anything like me, Thanksgiving makes me think of falling asleep for an early evening nap at 3 p.m. while watching football after a great family feast. As I doze off, I occasionally sit-up and wonder: what exactly was I thankful for today in the first place? And did I ever even give any particular thanks today? In the Book of Common Prayer, our collect for Thanksgiving Day guides us into giving thanks to God and teaches us the motivations of our thanksgiving:
Most merciful Father, we humbly thank you for all your gifts so freely bestowed upon us: for life and health and safety, for strength to work and leisure to rest, for all that is beautiful in creation and in human life; but above all we thank you for our spiritual mercies in Christ Jesus our Lord; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Giving thanks to God allows us to reimagine the gifts of our lives that we take for granted. Have you ever thanked God for your dental care? It never occurred to me to do such a thing until I flew to Colorado for the first time one summer during college to work at a youth camp for a month. High up in the Rocky Mountain altitude, my tooth started aching REALLY badly. My boss rushed me to the nearest dentist, who told me I needed a root canal. My insurance would not cover it, so I made it through the month on Tylenol, prayer, and the promise of a dentist appointment I made the day after I returned home. That lesson taught me to thank God for my regular dentist check-ups, for the people who dedicate themselves to the craft of dental care, and even for those silvery hooks the dentist puts in my mouth to scrape the plaque from my gums. What good gifts from God in your life can you thank Him for anew that you often take for granted?
Giving thanks to God helps us identify His good gifts in any season we are facing. I faced this truth in September when I contracted COVID-19. I felt upset because doctors had administered the vaccine to me. I had done everything right for eighteen months and got sick during my first week back teaching at school. The temptation to feel sorry for myself came to a head when, while home alone for the sixth day in a row, secluded from every living being in the world except my house plants, I broke down weeping -- while watching the ‘Great British Bake Off.’ Yes, my tears shed for George, whose custard did not rise properly, but in reality, I cried because I realized how much I missed my community and felt robbed of those several days of even mundane relationships during my recovery. Perhaps the thought of thinking of “life and health and safety” as a good gift rings hollow during a season of long-suffering with chronic pain, disease, or in a season of grief. God gives us the opportunity to give even these experiences to Him with thanksgiving: to experience in these seasons the reality of groaning with creation in a fallen world, while still pressing into the belief that in Christ we experience not the bitterness of being forgotten and cursed, but the delight of receiving His presence to comfort us and the His promise to bless us in our thanksgiving toward Him.
Giving thanks allows us to wonder again at the wondrous mercies of God in Christ. Where is it that the Holy Spirit is moving in you to humble yourself to recognize God’s mercies afresh this Thanksgiving? For me, it is Spanish. I studied Spanish for four years in high school, and currently use Duolingo to study it regularly (okay, maybe only once a week) to keep it sharp. But when it comes time to speak with someone in my neighborhood or in a local restaurant who I hear speaking Spanish, I freeze. I feel incompetent, even silly for wanting to ask them what phrase they just used. Lately, I have noticed the Spirit leading me to continue studying Spanish, but more so to humble myself into a position of asking for insights in these situations. It costs me something to ask: I have to make myself vulnerable to rejection and demonstrate my lack of verbal skill by asking. Similarly, this is what it means for us to come before the mercy seat of God. Christ has secured this for us in the cross, pronounced even our weakest efforts to give thanks to God as worthy by triumphing over death, and receives our thanksgiving and praise as he sits enthroned at the right hand of God. This is our confidence to approach the Father and give Him our thanks. Together, as the beloved church of Christ, we have much to give thanks for and abundant motivation to give thanks to our God as we come humbly to the mercy seat of grace to receive from God, who is the Giver of all good gifts.
The Rev. Ryan Bettwy is the Curate at Corpus Christi Anglican in Springfield, VA.