Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday. I love the reminder the month brings of being thankful and really find it at the front of my mind. Thanksgiving in my family was always about spending time with family and friends, not football or shopping. My mom always, and still does, welcome anyone who doesn't have a place to go into our home. Our Thanksgiving always means having new people to meet and the possibility of having anywhere from a few to many many people. It's the holiday for true hospitality, being happy to share what God has blessed us with to whomever wants to join. I've grown up seeing that excluding others is really missing the point of the First Thanksgiving, and really isn't showing true thankfulness for what God has blessed us with. So in our home you typically won't hear, "Our family only" or "This is just close friends." For as much as my mom doesn't enjoy having to try to figure out if she's having over 8 people or 15 the night before she cooks everything, there always is an open door at the Harper house. This is how I want my kids to see Thanksgiving. I want them to see the month of November as a month of reflection. A month to give God the glory, to be thankful, generous, and selfless. I want to challenge them, just as my mom did us, to be thankful for more than just home, family, and friends. While we should be thankful for all of these, they are easy things to be thankful for. They are those things you don't have to put much thinking into or to really search your heart and see all those tiny overlooked blessings God has given you throughout the year. Family, pets, friends, food, home all make a kindergartener's thankful turkey. My mom always wanted to push up to mature in our thankfulness and not just stay on the more superficial basics. To actually see what makes your heart ache with gratitude, you have to spend some time in thought, something I unfortunately only do in November and would benefit from doing it more. Last week I posted the below post on Instagram. The superficial level of thankfulness (although not any less important) is the blessing of this baby. I prayed to be pregnant again by November, not thinking I could face the month my last baby was due without another on the way, and God graciously answered. However, the deeper level of thankfulness, the one that makes my heart ache, bringing me to my knees before God, is the peace he's given me through this pregnancy. God has not promised me this pregnancy will go any differently than the last. There is no promise I won't lose this baby. There is no promise that it will be healthy, or that there will be no complications. No matter how much faith I have that these things won't happen, doesn't guarantee they won't, but God promises he will never leave me. He will be with me through the good times and the bad, just as he already has. After a miscarriage I expected extreme amounts of anxiety. I didn't know how I could go through pregnancy again "normally." The emotions this time are much harder, there is definitely a helpless uncertainty, realizing there is no promise things will go how I want, yet in it all I have peace. There is no crippling anxiety, but I'm ok with letting things fall in God's hands. I still can't go to an appointment alone. I have nightmares the week leading up. Thoughts of my last delivery put me into a panic attack and I truly cannot handle thinking about it, yet at the same time I have peace with God. A peace that I cannot explain. A peace that isn't blind, but clearly seeing the facts, knowing there is no promise of getting it all my way, yet accepting to believe God is good. A peace that almost scares me to admit exists, in fear I'll destroy it somehow. A peace that isn't of me or anything I have done on my own. It's an answer to prayer. A proof of the existence of God in my life. A peace somehow being able to exist while I still have those fears, those desires for it all to be ok. A peace that exists with normal fears, but frees me of the control of anxiety. I am not controlled by anxiety as I expected, obsessing over doing everything in my power to make it all ok. I know I can do nothing. I have no promises of the outcome, but I have the promise that God has it in control. God sees it all. God loves me and my family. God knows what is best for me and my family. He is love. He is The Creator, all-knowing, all-powerful, compassionate, forgiving, the perfect judge, my defender, my comforter, and will never leave me. The reality is, even with the pregnancy all going well, I could and should still be a disaster. I couldn't enjoy the blessing of the new baby without the even greater blessing of God's peace. Without Him I couldn't make it though this pregnancy. My last one I was doing EVERYTHING right. I was eating healthy, on my vitamins, no stress, no anxiety, working out, getting sleep, none of which was true with my pregnancy with Danny. With everything I was doing I should've been golden with the last one, and I lost the baby at 9 weeks. Why? I don't know. And I won't know. But what I had to understand and accept is it is all out of my control. I am not growing the baby, God is. I can obsess and try to control it, doing everything in my power to be as healthy as possible, but it promises nothing, and empty promises are never good to stand on. After extreme anxiety with my first pregnancy, still constantly battling pain from the complications, then losing my second pregnancy, somehow I have the more peace now with my third one than I did with any of the others. That doesn't and shouldn't make sense. It is only from God and I praise him for it.
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