Thanksgiving traditions strengthen family bonds

     

     Once again, early October is ushering in the Thanksgiving season. I always look forward to it with great anticipation. It is a time when we reunite once again as a family. 

     My family has purposed to carry on this tradition, it becoming especially meaningful since Nels' passing. 

     It was during Thanksgiving week, 10 years ago, that Nels left us. Meeting together in this way has helped strengthen our family ties and has kept his memory alive. 

     Family was important to Nels so we know he would be pleased with our on-going efforts to gather together.
His legacy of love still pulses throughout his family’s veins. 

     

     We always pause for a time of reflection and a fun time of remembering. 

     

     Their stories lovingly reveal the special place their Dad, Grandpa, or Father-in-law had within their lives. 

     



     




     Some serious, yet mostly humorous incidents are regaled, and embellished, revealing many of Nels' interesting personality traits: his spontaneity, sense of humour, his at times impulsivity, his integrity, his competitiveness, his innovative solutions which kept things working, his love for people, his humble and forgiving heart and Nels' strong determination to not give up when things got tough. 

     

     I have experienced many days of aloneness during these past long, 10 years. I believe God created us for togetherness and that is why He designed marriage. 

     But, I also believe marriage was never intended to be the ultimate remedy for loneliness. Single or married, young or old, man or woman — everyone experiences loneliness at different times in their lives. No one is exempt. 

     Perhaps we were created with a capacity for loneliness so that we would realize our need for completeness in our Creator. 

     As I continued deepening my relationship with Jesus — my best friend — and was blessed with wonderful support from my family, it kept me from being really lonely. 

     

     But, because of my earlier active life with Nels, surrounded by people and our shared on-going activities, I now felt a huge void where feelings of aloneness sometimes crept in. 

     There are still days "it" raises its head and I can feel very much alone again. I know loneliness or aloneness will be fully eradicated only when we get to heaven. 

     Recently, discovering Psalm 131, with its mere three verses, I found it to be a prayer of humility, contentment and hope. 

     It reads, “My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me… put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore." 

     So, just as a young child of four or five, walks trustingly beside his mother, so must I let go of what I don’t understand, and find that calm and quiet, as if I were a child again in my mother’s arms. 

   

     For Jesus did say, "…unless you become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3). 

     I regularly thank my Heavenly Father for accepting me into His family as His spiritual child. 

     So, I am really “never alone!"

— beulah