A Blog post by Roberta Egli
A Messy Thanksgiving
As I approach celebrating Thanksgiving this year, I am struggling a bit. I received a diagnosis of Breast Cancer over the Labor Day weekend. For myself this fall has been filled with Dr’s appointments, and a surgery to remove the cancer a month ago. For the past month, I have been living in the ‘in between’ space of waiting to discover the next steps of my treatment plan. Will it be chemotherapy, plus radiation, plus a hormone blocker pill for at least five years? Or will chemotherapy not be needed and I head straight to radiation and a hormone blocker? I thought I would have the plan by Thanksgiving Day but this week, my planned oncologist appointment was postponed since the results of the specific test have not yet arrived. So, I will continue to wait…at moments patiently and at other moments with frustration and disappointment!
How are you doing this Thanksgiving? Is your life messy? What is happening in your personal life? It has been so difficult to read the news each morning and hear of all of the violence. My heart breaks for the people of Israel AND Gaza as well as the people of Ukraine. Life seems overwhelming at times.
Practicing Daily Gratitude
Can we give Thanks when life is messy, when our world is filled with war and death? Thanksgiving Day comes regardless of whether life is sweet, life is difficult or life is overwhelming. In the swirl of these past few months, my morning ritual of taking just a few moments each day to start with silence, reading and turning my daily gratitude calendar has strengthened me through it all.
A Prayer to consider when life is tidy or messy
May you face life without illusion, but with gratitude.
Though you have known tragedy, may you nonetheless cherish laughter.
May you have an ever-clearer sense of what is important and what is not.
May your encounters with evil heighten your appreciation of what is good.
May you learn to meet death in a way that leads you to celebrate life.
~ Kathleen Fischer
Happy Thanksgiving!!! Love, Roberta
Oh… by the way, our Messy Church Office will be closed from November 23- 26th.