Season of Thanksgiving

Yesterday, was Thanksgiving. A feast of a holiday. A holiday where family, friends, and loved ones gather together to break bread and to celebrate the things they are thankful for. I have been thinking all month about what I am thankful for and the ways things are so incredibly different from what they were a year ago.As I sleep, and actually sleep and wake rested, I feel the changes deep within me. I can feel the healing continuously weaving itself throughout my body, my heart, my mind. It is like the rhythm of a well experienced sewer, the needled moves in and out, back in forth, in a practiced fashion. With every stitch, more healing comes and more of the pieces of me are coming together. These pieces are learning to harmonize and they are making the most lovely music.This year I am so overwhelmingly thankful for my health, for my family, for loved ones, for all the healers, and for the ways God has woven healers into my life to love me back to life. A year ago, my relationship with God was strained because I didn't know how to connect, but whenever I reflect back I see God's hands working their way through my life. I think I am beginning to understand what it means to say that we are called to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world. Christ's hands and feet loved me back to life, their feet came when I couldn't move, their hands reached out to heal when I couldn't patch myself up, and their love and care slowly, but surely broke down walls and began to heal a wounded heart. I am so thankful for my healers. I am thankful for the ways God was constantly present with me, keeping me safe in the shadow of God's own wings, as my counselor likes to put it.Last night, I think I realized that the seasons of my life have switched. I am properly on the other side of depression and the struggle that is the in-between season right after it. I am in a new season, one that is so incredibly sweet. It feels like rest, like joy, like peace and it is a heck of a lot slower than any other season of my life. All I can say is I am thankful for so much this year, but especially for my healers, my people, and their hard loving work in loving me through a dark and painful season. I am so incredibly thankful for health, for peace, for sweetness, and for rest. I am so thankful I worship a God who cares about these things, who cares about relationship, who heals, and who refuses to give up on any of us. I am thankful for love and its magical healing properties. I am thankful for the continued healing in my heart and life. And I am thankful that I have the great privilege to share all of this with you.My hope is that you may have healers in all areas of your life, that you may know love in the deepest and richest of ways, and that you may find peace after your long journeys.It has taken a lot of love, a lot of professional help, and a lot of time to pull me from the depression and to land me where I am now. If you are in the midst of the battle, whether with depression or your own personal struggles, I pray that you seek help, seek out your loved ones, be honest with them. If you need to seek professional help, whether in the form of a doctor or counselor, etc. do it--there is no shame in asking for help from people who have been called to professional fields to help others. My pastoral care professor calls it the circle of care and the more people who can help heal and love in the circle, the better. Your healers will come and they will love you back to life.Peace and Blessings friends; Peace and Blessings.All my Heart,Margaret