by Rob Freshour
HIGHLAND, MI – As is probably true for you and yours, one of the most anticipated and cherished celebrations in our family is Thanksgiving Day. Hours and sometimes days of travel and cooking are dedicated to our annual gathering, and especially to the time we share around the table. Still weeks away from Thanksgiving Day 2021, I am already longing for that sacred time of feast, fellowship, and family.
One moment in particular captures my heart, the moment before we dine when we circle the table with testimonies of gratitude. Those precious few minutes are a tradition that Donna and I long to see kept and treasured by each family member. For those fleeting moments the drawbridges are down, and passage to each person’s heart is happily open to receive the grace, mercy, and love God has so richly showered upon us all. So, I have been asking: “What am I thankful for this year?”
A medical missionary worked among a people with an unusual, but devastating, malady. Seems all the people of that region were afflicted by a disease that caused them to become gradually blind as they matured. The doctor studied the problem, and developed a treatment that stopped the disease. As the people would leave the clinic, assured they were no longer fated to lose their sight, they would express their gratitude saying, “I will tell your name!”
With that refrain, I offer an early draft of my Thanksgiving Day table testimony this year:
Because You have forgiven and set me free forever from my sin, “Lord, I will tell Your name!”
Because You have graced me with a godly wife who completes me, a prayer warrior devoted to Your pleasure in my life, our marriage, and Your mission, “Lord, I will tell Your name!”
Because You have given me the greatest opportunity to express what You are like by making me a dad five times, “Lord, I will tell Your name!”
Because You have shown me how great, deep, and full of passion is Your Father-love, and have brought me to wholly new, deeper levels of prayer by my ache for our two prodigal children, “Lord, I will tell Your name!”
Because You have given me a front-row seat in the painful, beautiful work You are doing in our now-divorced, broken, and blossoming daughter’s life, “Lord, I will tell Your name!”
Because You have afforded me the privileged opportunity to show our grandchildren, now growing up in our home, that no matter what trauma they endure, we – their Momma and Bomma and Boppa and You, Lord – will always love them, “Lord, I will tell Your name!”
Because You are never taken aback – not by COVID, not by human insolence and rebellion in all its crass manifestations today or ever, but Your purpose always prevails, “Lord, I will tell Your name!”
Because Your call is irrevocable, Your Plan A (there is no Plan B) is still to invite us with our faith family to partner with You to populate Heaven with our families, friends, neighbors, and the nations, “Lord, I will tell Your name!”
Because You have lavished at least 22,000 new daily mercies on me since my birth, “Lord, I will tell Your name!”
Because we are almost Home, “Lord, I will tell Your name!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rob Freshour joined the BSCM-Church Growth Ministries Team in 2002. In 2006, he went to pastor one of our Michigan churches. Today, Rob shepherds the Highland Community Church in Highland.