Happy Thanksgiving Canadian style! Canadian Thanksgiving Day has different roots than American Thanksgiving Day, but the two things our days share are family and food. Lots of food. Turkey is the protein of choice in most homes. I used to have a love-hate relationship with Thanksgiving if the truth were to be told. I loved being with friends and family, but I couldn’t eat turkey, as it made me ill. I stayed away when the turkey was lifted from the oven because even the scent of it made me ill.
I discovered that as long as I don’t eat turkey, I was fine. There was plenty of other goodies that come with a great Thanksgiving meal that completely satisfied me. I survived quite nicely outside of suffering an occasional tummy ache from having way too much of the other goodies served!
I told this story to more than a few of my close friends over the years, using my usual sense of humour. Over the years, the story took on on a life of its own. Some of my friends feared to invite me over for dinner. They didn’t want me dropping dead on their doorstep from the merest whiff of turkey! I don’t blame them; it would be a downer at any dinner party to have a guest drop dead. I considered writing up a release form, absolving them of any personal responsibility for my demise upon accidentally ingesting a stray bit of turkey.
It got me thinking. How often do stories in our lives take on a life of their own? We share a story with a friend, or a painful incident from our past, perhaps. We vent, we moan, we groan. Eventually, we move past that incident. Hopefully, we received a measure of healing and closure by just talking it over with a close friend. Years later, we casually bring up the incident in a conversation and do so without a smidgen of pain or pathos.
Our friend splutters. “But I thought you were still dealing with that! Do you have any idea how I’ve gone out of my way to avoid bringing up that painful incident to you? Do you have any idea how I’ve gingerly changed the subject when others might bring it up?”
How often do we forget that the lives of our friends and family move along at the same pace as our own! What might have once been an enormous issue to them in their past is no longer an issue. They have successfully dealt with the issue, or they’ve learned to cope with the situation. We forget people grow, mature and move on.
Evidence of this phenomena is easily found when stories of long-ago misadventures of fellow siblings or cousins are brought up as if they happened yesterday. Stories take a life of their own, and our poor family members are forced to relive a part of their lives that is no longer relevant to them just so the rest of the family can have a good giggle.
I am a prime example. After decades of not being able to eat turkey, I felt a prompting to buy a slice of deli turkey, and so I did so. After all, the worse that could happen was some serious but temporary digestive discomfort. There was none. I was healed. I have since been able to eat turkey with no issues beyond discovering that I’m not a huge fan of turkey. I prefer chicken.
Personal Application
Let’s be gracious to one another and let’s resist from viewing our friends and family as if they were frozen in time. After all, we have lived and learned… and so have they!
And a side note: don’t forget to tell others about the good things God has done for you. I rejoice in my freedom to eat turkey if I so wish!
NOTE: This week’s YouTube will not be about the blog, as some of my regular attendees asked if I would share on a specific topic for this week only. I am NOT a Bible scholar, but I agreed to share some Bible reading tips.
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Until Next Week,
©2020 Katherine Walden