Streams of Mercy

In reading the Presbyterian Outlook last week, I came across a poem by J. Barrie Shepherd – “To Give Thanks…” and there I found fresh new thoughts and deeper reasons for giving thanks.

“To Give Thanks…”

is to remember how it feels

to experience belonging, to look long

around a laden table and be glad to claim

a place among that gathered company.

To give thanks is to remember

what has been – time’s bewildering recital –

and, despite so much, to look ahead

with undiminished hope.

To give thanks is to recall with heartache

all those absent from the assembled,

the dear departed, those, too,

who never made it in the first place,

due to loss, or want, foul fortune, being born

at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

To give thanks takes all that we have been,

all that we are and yet might be, and shapes it new

around a fuller, richer, broader future feast.

As we gather with family and friends this Thanksgiving Day, may each of us give thanks in deeper ways than ever before. Happy Thanksgiving!

Elizabeth