Thanksgiving after sadness

It had been a hard year when the pilgrims celebrated the great feast that would become our Thanksgiving holiday. Their voyage from England had been delayed the previous year, putting them into Cape Cod at the beginning of a harsh winter, low on food, weak from the journey, and lacking shelter or any idea of where they were. Between the ocean crossing and that awful winter, half of the brave Mayflower pilgrims died. It had been a hard year - so much loss, and yet there was Governor William Bradford, calling for hunted fowl to provide a feast so that they might rejoice together.

How do we approach these holidays of rejoicing if it has been a hard year? How do we face a dinner table with fewer places set? How do we give thanks when our heart has so much grief?

These are difficult questions, but I take comfort in the fact that they are not new. Perhaps old Bradford was on to something. Maybe he knew that a time to rejoice for the blessings they had was an important balance for all their times of shared grief. In the midst of all they had lost, they also needed to remember what they had, and what they had gained. A feast of rejoicing didn’t mean that they were done with grief and sadness. It just meant that they weren’t going to allow their losses to be their only story. Their story was also one of blessings. They had gained a foothold on a new continent. Plymouth was beginning to feel like a home, and not just an emergency shelter.

In some ways, their blessings were the same as ours. They had food to eat for the winter ahead, and a dry place to sleep. They had each other – a community of support to share the burdens and sorrows. They had faith in God, and their faith helped them to remember that their lives were part of a grand history that began before their births and would continue past their deaths. It is a history of God faithfulness and love for all people. It is a promise that everything lost will finally be found; all that is broken will be made whole.

So let us rejoice and give thanks, even when the year has been hard. It won’t be the first time, and it won’t be the last.