Thanksgiving is Steve's favorite holiday. I slipped and said it is his favorite holiday. I am struggling with the tenses in my language I have to change from is and does to did and was when referring to Steve. I get frustrated sometimes when this happens. Anyway in honor of you, Steve I will say my Thank you prayers this year and will continue it as our family tradition. Thank you prayers were and will continue to be a big part of our Thanksgiving celebration. Every day we have things to be thankful for, and we go to bed thanking God each night for our day. At Thanksgiving, we get the opportunity to share with our family, some of the things we were particularly grateful for through out the year. Our focus is on how good God has been to us even if we were not so great ourselves. We love our corporate thank you prayers, because we get to hear the hearts of our children once a year as they pray aloud. I know I sound confused in my tenses again, but I purposely say it that way, because I feel Steve is all around is.
Our thank you prayers usually take place after the meal. It was a family decision to eat our meal first,while it was warm instead of the cold after prayer meal we had eaten a few times. It was a good compromise for the kids, which took away their excuses to pray a quick prayer because the food was getting cold. We either stay around the dinner table or go into the living room after our meal and start from the youngest to the oldest thanking God. When it gets around to Steve, the kids mumble, "big prayer" then we smile and settle in to listen to Steve's prayer. Big prayer didn't mean the most spiritual prayer when the kids first started to say it many years ago. It meant it would take the longest and they usually groaned it out as they rolled their eyes and sighed loudly. They were impatient, but secretly I think they all loved to hear what their father would say about them, after his usual opening of thanking God for the day and the many benefits He blessed us with. Next came the juicy part of his prayer, the part each child waited for as Steve would thank God for each child, and the gifts He had blessed each one of them with. He recognized each child's accomplishments through the year, and prayed a prayer of blessing over them. Each one of the kids beamed with joy at the mention of their name and the recognition of their accomplishments of the year. Big prayer evolved from an impatient childish complaint and a family joke, into a wonderful tradition of their father corporately praying for his family once a year. Steve, this house holds years of your prayers in the walls and woodwork, and your voice still resounds as echos of prayers past uplift me this year.
I am thankful God gave you to me for the few short 29 years we were married. I am thankful for the joy you brought to me, the love you shared with me, and the beautiful fruit from our union. I am thankful for the wonderful father and provider you were for us. I am thankful you are in a better place this year and that you have no cares anymore. I am thankful you get to see your mom again and you get to ask God all those questions you wanted to ask Him one day. I am thankful that you showed us how to be strong. I am thankful I have a loving family to lean on and great friends to pull me through the loneliness. I am thankful for what is to come whatever it may be. I am thankful God loves me more than I can imagine and He wants the best for me. I am so thankful that we live in a free country where I can blog my mind away.
Honey, you are missed more than you will ever know, but I know you don't care because you probably don't think of such things now. I guess it comforts me to know that you are missed by so many people. I will miss slapping your hand as you reach for the turkey skin. I will miss you taking credit for the meal I cooked after your big contribution of carving the bird. I will miss you complimenting the meal I cooked at the end of the meal as we start sliding our chairs away from the table. I will miss you sleeping in the chair or the bed after the big meal. I will miss you rooting for the other team during the football games. I will miss that sweet I love you from across the noisy room when our eyes met and we felt the complete joy of a full house again. I miss you Steve, you will never be forgotten. Happy Thanksgiving my darling, I know it is your best one ever because you are at the kings banqueting table this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment