Surprised by Thanks

“Give thanks.” The words meet us everywhere during this season: hanging from banners, printed into worship bulletins, drifting through radio speakers. And if, as is the case for many just now, you’re going through a rough patch, the exhortation can feel like another impossible expectation life has imposed on you. This season, perhaps we can relax into thanks, remaining open and letting it find us. For instance, while walking Town Lake one morning, a beautiful scent reached me: roses, apparently unaware that it was mid-November, bloomed in a riot of color, their fragrance more real and strong than any rose I’d experienced for some time. Dew sat up proudly in the ridges of the roses’ leaves, pure and powerful in the morning air. And thanks found me.

This holiday we can give ourselves the gift of permission: permission not to work ourselves up to a feeling of thanks, but, rather, letting go and allowing thanks to find us.