Thanksgiving is full of so many blessings. We should be able to sit and list the dozens and dozens of things that we are thankful for each year, each day and each minute of our lives. It is these moments of reflective gratitude in the recognition of the abundance of God’s love and blessings that help us to seek and discover the love of God in the grace of our lives.

One of the blessings of visiting my sister and her family for Thanksgiving day is they always have a jigsaw puzzle ready to be put together. I like helping my nieces and nephews, their spouses and my sister with the puzzle. The fascinating part of the puzzling process is how each person attacks the search for the piece. Some will pick up a piece of the puzzle and seek to find where in the greater puzzle that particular piece falls. Looking closely at the pattern, color while studying the completed cover photo until they find the location of the piece. Others will look at the puzzle and then begin searching the hundreds of pieces on the table for the correct size, shape and color needed. Some of us can spend hours in concentration while others a few minutes here and there as the puzzle slowly but surely takes shape and images become clearer and easier to see.

What is always true is that when we un-focus and relax in our obsession with finding the once piece that you know is there and you have tried to fit a dozen pieces in the one spot…it will always appear.

It is the challenge that we all can struggle with in our faith life and the mission that God desires us to live and follow as His sons and daughters. We can all become obsessed with the little things in life and how we fit in and how we are called to do this and that…. In my prayer life this is often the case when I ask God in petitionary prayer then quickly supply the answer of how God should answer my prayer. Or how we can look so hard for a blessing that we know should be in our lives and continually pass over the obvious truth of God’s presence in the moment. Or…the examples are many.

I fall into this trap again and again. And don’t get me wrong, it isn’t that God is trying to frustrate me or is hiding the answer so that I have to play a game of hide and seek with him, rather it is the mystery of contemplating God’s love that we often struggle with.

Which returns me to Thanksgiving. God has blessed us with everything. The glaringly obvious and those things we will never see or understand. God’s gentle whispers of hope and nudges of holiness are heard and felt when we are able to relax and not obsess over our worthiness of his love. We must search for but never fear that Jesus is with us, that he loves us and blesses us always.

God Bless

Fr. Mark