my cup overflows

I didn't quite know what our Thanksgiving would look like this year in a foreign country, where turkey is not an easily available item for purchase. And family is not anywhere near by. And friends only go back a few months.

As I reflect on this Thanksgiving abroad, celebrated with new friends who feel they could be old friends, my heart is full. There are times when God's love for us feels so personal. He knows our hopes and longings and tender places and disappointments so intimately. Sometimes it seems He reaches into our lives and fulfills a heart's desire simply because He wants to give a good gift. It brings God pleasure to see us thrive.

Besides a beautiful Thanksgiving meal with most of the essential side dishes, we had a few moments of well-behaved children, allowing us to relax and enjoy some edifying adult conversation. Proof that God is caring for us tenderly, compassionately, and personally in a season that has been deeply stretching.

As this new friend reminds me, we are known by a God who sees us. In this case, He has preempted one of our most intimate needs for community by providing friendship and fellowship in a place that could have been colored by deep loneliness. For this, we must pause to be grateful.

Throughout the month of November, our family practiced the discipline of gratitude by adding to a "thankful tree" made of construction paper hanging on the window. This act of daily inscribing leaves with the numerous reasons we have be thankful is sure to become a new family tradition.

It makes my heart feel especially full to see some of the things my children have put on their leaves...

* "God loves me so so so much" -- Karsten 

* "God is so creative" -- Sommer 

* "answered prayers, like getting to see a hedgehog" -- Annike 

* "the olden days"  (stemming from all the history we are seeing here in Europe) 

* "a ride on a fairy boat"  (meaning: "ferry boat") 

* "milck"  (spelled with a mixture of German and English spelling) 

* "new friends" 

* "old friends"

Our traditionally American Thanksgiving dinner was observed over the weekend because it turns out that there are no breaks from school over here honoring American-only holidays. To make our acutal Turkey Day special, we pulled off our first pot of traditional Swiss Fondue. It is a fun meal to share on a special occasion because it invites the family into community. Everyone gathers in close around the pot, giggling while the bread is dipped, and sometimes lost, and the kids feel especially tickled to be eating with a long sharp stick.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"You anoint my head with oil; 

my cup overflows. 

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me 

all the days of my life."  

Psalm 23:5,6