gratitude

Finding Home Wherever You Are {at EnCourage}

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment
Below is the beginning of an article I re-worked from this year to share at (En)Courage. You can find the full article here.

HEATHER NELSON|CONTRIBUTOR

I’ve been thinking about “home” a lot lately. Obsessing over it might be a more accurate description. My family doesn’t have a home of our own right now. And after 11+ years of dwelling in our own home, it’s different. We originally thought it would just be a few weeks, maybe two months tops, while were in transition from Virginia to South Carolina and waiting for our home to sell. But this stopgap arrangement has become nine months of living. It will be a full school year by the time this season comes to a completion.

Home In-Between

So how do we make “home” for a family of four while sharing my parents’ home? How do they expand their “home” to fit the demands, noise, delights, etc, of a family-of-four-with-two-7-year-olds? I could write a how-to article, co-authored with my parents, on all the ways to make it work or things to avoid. But that would miss the more important way God’s been teaching me about “home” while living in this unique season — like what it means in this time of home-of-our-own absence to know the Lord as my true dwelling place.

I am learning that “home” is many places and that I can choose to make whatever current living space my “home” (even if it’s not entirely or even partially mine). This current transitional season began last fall when our family moved from Norfolk, Virginia, to Greenville, South Carolina, for my husband to pursue full-time doctoral work. Greenville is my hometown — it’s where I was raised from the time I was two-years-old and it’s where I returned to live my first few years out of college. Yet returning to my hometown with my own family in tow hasn’t been as much like returning to “true home” as it once was.

My husband and I have made “home” in two places at this point in our 11+ years of marriage—Philadelphia and Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk’s the only home our 7-year-old twin daughters have ever known. So coming back to South Carolina— while certainly familiar for me and wonderful in the aspect of being close to my family again— is not yet our home as a family. That’s because the process of a place becoming home takes time. We can’t speed it up, no matter how much we try or how many people we start off knowing or how familiar a geographical location is.  …

{read the rest of the article here}

An honest prayer for Thanksgiving

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

As we move into the season in which we seek to pause and give thanks, to celebrate God’s provision with a bountiful feast, I want to offer a meditation and a prayer. {While I also seek to acknowledge how this season can become an occasion for #thanks-shaming. I.e. Why don’t I feel more grateful for all that I’ve been given? I wish I was as grateful as ___ seems to be, etc. If this feeling of thanks-shaming resonates with you, read more in my series about shame here.}

May I lift my gaze to what is good in my life, for even the darkest of nights can be illuminated by a tiny pinprick of light, like a star bursting through the black canvas of of a night sky.

May I have eyes to see the beauty around me, hidden though it may be.

May I use Thanksgiving as a time of focused practice in noticing what I’ve been given.

And in giving thanks, may I see those with whom I am asked to share my abundance. May I see the poor, the marginalized, the orphaned, the widowed, and the ones at my own table who are lonely and carrying sorrows in isolation. May I be generous and open-handed with all I’ve been given, as God has so generously been towards me. 

a Thanksgiving meditation

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 2 Comments

As you go into the day in which we all pause and give thanks, where we eat bountiful feasts and celebrate God’s provision, I offer you a meditation and a prayer. A prayer that also acknowledges that this day/season too often also becomes an occasion for thanks-shaming (why don’t I feel more grateful for all that I’ve been given? why don’t these people I’m at table with seem more grateful for me or me for them?).

thanksgiving image

photo credit: jennaburger.com

May I have eyes to see the beauty around me, hidden though it might be beneath layers of chaos and criticism and busyness and family dynamics and guilt and shame.

May I lift my gaze to what is good in my life, for there is always something good – even the darkest of nights can be illuminated by a pinprick of light, like a star bursting through the black canvas of of a night sky.

May I have tastebuds to taste and see and relish and delight in the goodness of the Lord who provides. And if I can’t, may I pray to have my tastebuds changed – attuned to what is truly good – even if it means spiritual junk food must be jettisoned, or that I must step away from what dulls my senses (or whom).

May I practice giving thanks on Thanksgiving as a day of focused practice on noticing what I’ve been given. For I have been given so much.

And in giving thanks, may I see those with whom I am asked to share my abundance. May I see the poor, the marginalized, the orphaned, the widowed, and (even/especially) the ones at my own table who are lonely and carrying sorrows in isolation. May I create a space for them with whatever I’ve been given.