Happy Thanksgiving!
Hi and Happy Thanksgiving/ Fall/ Eat a lot of food/Have crazy family times Day!!! haha.
Aren’t holidays just amazing? I love the chaos and the funny quotes from Grandma that we’ll never forget (and should write a book about..=0), the full house of family and friends, the REALLY good food for the day and as long as leftovers last… the smell of cinnamon and apple candles, laughing until it hurts with your siblings and people you don’t see often enough… and mostly I love a holiday that very obviously reminds us….to be….thankful. I am not as thankful as I should be, because really life is so good, I should be brimming with it!
Well, we just finished up the Rock What You Got Tour about a week ago! It was with Starlit Platoon, Article One, Stellar Kart and us. Really fun tour! Cool guys in all those bands, and it’s always great to get to know the people behind the songs on the radio. It was about 30ish dates, and we had some really fun shows! I must admit, by the end I was missing home and hubby and how beautiful Nashville is in the Fall soooo much, I couldn’t wait to get home!
I got married August 17th this year, so I’m definitely a newlywed. My husband plays with Thousand Foot Krutch, and so we sort of have the same schedule (which is nice that we’re both leaving an empty house, not each other). So this year the family is coming here to our new house, for our first Thanksgiving together! So much fun! I might be able to guess a question in your minds… and no, I am not the only cook or the main cook, or really even deserving of the title cook at all. haha. I’m not great yet. My sister Melissa, she’s pretty great and will be doing the turkey work on her own… with all of us gathering to sniff here and there… I think I’m being trusted with a green bean casserole (a favorite recipe of Mom’s), and let’s be honest, can you really screw up green beans?! My favorite things to eat Thanksgiving are my mom’s sweet potatoes (aaaaamazing) and my Grandma’s homemade dumplins… oh my gosh. Both from the land of Amazing, if such a place exists!
Now that I’m off tour a while, this winter I’m back to work on my book, Beauty from Pain… still collecting stories for it, sifting through the great stories I’ve already had sent to me. I’m so excited to finish this project and to share the stories of God’s grace and faithfulness and healing in your lives and mine… we all need to know we are not alone. We all need a bit of hope handed to us from time to time, when it feels ours is dwindling. I’ll be meeting with publishers soon. Please still send your stories if you haven’t, or resend if you want to be sure I get it. =) I’d love to hear from you! I opened a new email address just for it… send your stories here: beautyfrompain08@hotmail.com.
Always on Thanksgiving and Christmas, I find myself being very introspective; I look back and think about where I was last year, the year before… how I’ve changed, how life’s changed around me… These times can hurt, remembering things we’ve lost or had to walk away from that are missed, and then can be such an amazing example of God’s grace, bringing us through times we are so thankful are gone.
I love minutes that feel like a Polaroid snapshot, where we catch ourselves looking at the people around us, parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, aunts, uncles and cousins – people who have grown up with us, lived life with us, loved us through our highest, shining moments and through our barely making it by moments. This is family. This is love. This is what life is all about. We won’t always have each other. Life is precious and short and so unsure.
So live to the full, be in THIS moment. Not texting someone far away or thinking of what’s next or where you’d rather be. Give the gift of you to the people in your life. It’s the best and most precious gift you could give this holiday season. Time. Love. Can’t be bought or sold. Priceless.
“Everybody dies, but not everyone lives..”
Happy Thanksgiving friends!
