Thankful.

My heart is full and so is my belly.

Thanksgiving has come & gone, and so have the leftovers.

Around these parts, Thanksgiving is bigger than Christmas.  It’s a Filly Family Favorite (try saying  that 10 times fast) filled with our most favorite things.

This year, among the holiday festivities, abounding laughter and elastic waist pants we started a new tradition.

Every Wednesday night my sister & I along with 15 teenagers get together for Youth Group.  It’s a beautiful, crazy, wonderful, spirit filled thing.   Our newest tradition started there, in our Youth room.    It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and we wanted to celebrate with them & enjoy some holiday cheer.
We told them all to dress like cowboys (because dressing like pilgrims wouldn’t be half as fun) and indians. We asked each of them to bring something.

Now, our youth group is all boys & one girl, so you can imagine their responses.  Many boys promised to bring cookies, and rice crispy treats.  One even promised he’d bring smoked ham (which, we learned later, turned out to be lunch meat).

We were beyond excited.

The day finally came and we prepared to have our Thanksgiving feast.  The boys brought their promised cookies, rice crispy treats and a few went above and beyond and made mac n cheese and some other goodies.  They all filled their plates and sat down.  We blessed the meal, but before they could dig in, we explained how dinner was gonna go down.

For every bite they took, they had to say one thing they were thankful for.  We would go in a circle stating what we were thankful for and taking one bite each until the last plate was empty.

It was about to be the longest meal in the history of man kind.

And I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Along with the usual things to be thankful for like “air”, “cute girls” & “the ability to be awesome” those teenagers said things that blew my mind.  They were thankful for their circumstances, for the hard times that grew them, for parents who stuck together no matter what, for leaders in our church that set good examples, for their relationship with Christ & His abounding love…..

I was in awe.

You see, many of those kids really are going through hell.  And yet, they are still praising God and trusting him and thanking him…..

….and I am so thankful for that, I’m so thankful for them.