Giving Thanks

A couple of friends have blessed me with some writing this week on the theme of Thanksgiving, so there will be a few days of giving thanks on Whatever He Says, starting with this poem by my friend Magda Wills, who wrote:

Dear Belinda,

Yesterday afternoon I took time on my way to run some errands to enjoy the beauty of the fall colors on a few roads just outside Newmarket. Many people were out doing the same but I ran into a few incidents where people were speeding and trying to weave in and out of traffic to gain an extra minute. I felt like getting out at the stop light where they were waiting the same as all the cars they had passed and ask if they would take just one moment in their life to stop and give thanks for the glorious scene around them.

Giving Thanks

Did you stop to look at God’s world today,
And give thanks for it as we should?
Like the Lord who created this glorious scene
Who took time each day to behold that it was good.

Did you stop to relax your body today,
And grant yourself a much-needed rest?
Or did you focus on chores that pile ever so high,
Ignoring His call to lay your head on His chest?

Did you stop to love your neighbour today,
Offering her tea and a kind listening ear?
Or did you heed the world’s ongoing illusion instead,
That an unproductive moment is something to fear?

Did you stop to examine your agenda today,
And place it before the Lord God in prayer?
To see if His plan for your life on this day
Is really so burdensome and heavy to bear?

Did you stop to surrender your all today,
Claiming His strength when you feel tired and weak?
And did you thank Him for reminding us again and again
That the battle is not ours to fight or to seek?

So stop and behold God`s world today,
Which is aflame with a most beautiful sight.
And offer Him thanks from the depths of our hearts,
For in this He will truly delight.

Friends, some of us need this reminder, I know I do.
Happy Thanksgiving. Belinda