Thanksgiving 2026

 

Thanksgiving 2026

The measure of our marriage

 

This has been quite the year for us, and while we have been shaken to the core of who we are; our core, our foundation, Jesus Christ, has remained unshaken, steadfast, and our refuge. Life is not touch football, or flag football, life is full-contact football and we all can be blindsided at one time or another.

 

On the morning of March 30, 2026, at breakfast, Vickie and I were talking about how long our parents and grandparents had lived, and how many more years we might have together, by God’s grace. That very night Vickie was admitted to ICU with a massive bilateral pulmonary embolism, with the right side of her heart shutting down. Do you think there is a lesson here?

 

With the above as a backdrop, an image recently came to me of our marriage that I’d like to share with you, it is an image of the way we’ve endeavored to live in Christ, and an image of the way I hope we will die in Christ.

 

Thanksgiving has wonderful memories for us, while also being bittersweet in that my dear brother Jim went to be with Jesus on Thanksgiving as did our beloved friend Gloria. We’ll have a Greater Thanksgiving when we are with them again, never to be parted.

 

One of our memories, which we were just talking about, was a Thanksgiving in Beverly, MA in which our home was filled with friends from England, Spain, Greece, Germany and the U.S.A.

 

After the cleanup, after everyone had left, as we were decompressing from a beautiful day, our thoughts turned to that most delicious of delights, turkey sandwiches. After all, is this not why we roast turkeys? Are leftover turkey sandwiches not the true dessert of Thanksgiving? Turkey on white bread with mayo, salt and pepper, and maybe lettuce, and maybe some cranberry. Yes, some may use dinner rolls instead of white bread, that is acceptable, let us not quibble about bread, let us not have schism over bread.

 

I don’t recall if Vickie or I looked in the refrigerator first; first one of us did, then the other. No leftover turkey. While it pains me, I’ll write it again, no turkey.  As we verified the complete absence of leftover turkey, that delicacy of delicacies, as we discussed the dire situation we were in, we realized what had happened. Between the two of us, we had given all the turkey away as we were distributing containers of leftovers to our dear friends.

 

All the turkey had been carried out the front door of our home and whisked away to be enjoyed by guests, our friends, our dearly beloved brothers and sisters.

 

There was not a piece of white meat, not a piece of dark; other than the carcass there was no proof that there had ever been a turkey in our home that Thanksgiving.

 

We laughed and we are still laughing. We rejoiced, and we are still rejoicing.

 

Our friends had given us the gift of a loving and memorable Thanksgiving. They had graced our home, petted our dogs, laughed with us, rejoiced with us, bathed us and one another in love and peace – and created a wave of God’s Presence that still carries us along. What is a little turkey among friends?

 

As Vickie and I approach this Thanksgiving, and as I give thanks for the miracle of Vickie’s healing and recovery – all through the grace of God – (a recent scan showed no evidence that she ever had the bilateral pulmonary embolism, no evidence of the myocardial infarction) – I am reminded that Jesus tells us, “Freely you have received, freely give.”

 

I am grateful for another Thanksgiving with Vickie (the Lord willing!); I am thankful for every day with her. I am thankful that I am married to a woman with whom I can give all the turkey away. Because you see, our lives are not measured by what we have accumulated, but by what we have given away. They are not measured by what we have experienced, but by what we’ve helped others experience.

 

My hope is that this will always be the measure of our marriage in our Lord Jesus.

 

My prayer is God’s blessing on you and yours this Thanksgiving.

 

Love…much love…

 

Bob

A Holy Charge (19)

 

“Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17).

 

Recalling that rejoicing always, praying without ceasing, and giving thanks in all things are woven into the essence of our koinonia with (and in) the Trinity, that they are expressions of our life in the Vine – how might we think about this admonition to always be praying?

 

(Can we see the continuous element in verses 16 – 18? Always rejoicing, always praying, and always giving thanks; if we give thanks for everything then we are always giving thanks.)

 

For sure prayer takes many forms. Paul urges that “entreaties [intercessions] and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men…” (1 Tim. 2:1). We pray for others; we also pray for ourselves, we give thanks on our own behalf, we make petitions. The one prayer we cannot pray on our own behalf is the prayer of intercession, that requires another to stand in our place before God; Jesus always does this (Heb. 7:25), but hopefully there are others who also intercede for us…well…let us hope there is a least someone who does.

 

Praying for someone is not the same as interceding for someone. To intercede for someone (or a people) means that we stand in that person’s place before our Father, it means that we identify ourselves with that person, it means that we bind ourselves to our prayers of intercession until an answer comes and our souls are released from the burden of intercession. Intercession may be for a short season, but it may also be for many months or years; indeed, it may be for a lifetime. Intercession is intensely sacrificial.

 

Praying for someone may morph into intercession…or it may not. When we pray for someone on a regular basis we may find times a sense of special prayer for the other person is placed on our hearts by the Holy Spirit – responding to the Holy Spirit in such times often leads us into a season of intercession.

 

I tell many people that I will pray for them, but seldom do I tell others that I will intercede for them. While all prayer is holy ground, intercession is a particular holy ground with a commitment and a cost – it is usually long term. The Lord hears our words, He knows whether we have made a commitment to intercede…and I do not think He takes these things lightly. After all, His intercession for us cost Him His life…and to one degree or another our intercession will cost us our own lives. “Death works in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:12).

 

It has been said that prayer is conversation with God – this means both speaking and listening. I believe this, I strongly and deeply believe this; I believe conversational communion is at the core of our life in the Trinity. If we spend our days and nights in Jesus the Vine, it is natural that we’ll be enjoying listening to Him and speaking to Him – mutually sharing thoughts with each other.

 

It we spend our days with a spouse or a friend; there will be times we engage in conversation and there will be times we are both silent; every day will probably not be the same. The absence of verbal conversation does not mean that we are not together, it does not mean that we are not thinking about each other, it does not mean that our presence has been withdrawn from one another. There may be days when one spouse talks more than another. Ought we not learn to be natural with our Father, with our Lord Jesus, and with the Holy Spirit?

 

Yet, while prayer is conversation with God, we know from Scripture that prayer takes many forms and some of those forms have a special “voice” to them – such as intercession. Other forms can include petitions for oneself or others, thanksgivings, confession of sin, a plea for wisdom, prayers for healing, prayer when making a decision (Jesus spent the night in prayer before choosing the Twelve).

 

I am making this point because as much as I cherish the image of prayer being conversation with God, and as much as I have endeavored to practice this as the fabric of my life, prayer can also require much work and sacrifice, it can require wisdom as it is based on the Word of God and the Promises of God as contained in His Word. Prayer often requires discipline, in fact, we may fail to engage in forms of Biblical prayer because we are not living lives of discipleship – therefore we do not have a foundation upon which to build and practice a life of prayer.

 

Many years ago, when I was pondering my prayer life, I sensed the Father speaking to me, “Bob, why are you pondering your prayer life, when you should be thinking about living a life of prayer?”

 

We are called not so much to have “prayer lives,” but rather to live in intimate relationship with God, an intimacy in which we live lives of prayer.

 

I suppose I need to address the question, “Is this possible? Is it possible to pray without ceasing?"

 

O dear friends, to live in deep relationship with Jesus and with one another is our calling, and when we focus on Jesus we will (I think) stop asking such questions for we will realize that we are abiding in the Vine – in good days and bad, in sorrow and in joy – and we will be going deeper and higher in our dear Lord Jesus. Why, even should we sin we will still be praying…prayers of confession, of repentance, of consecration – there is always something to talk about with Jesus, our Father, and the blessed Holy Spirit – always!

 

Jesus calls us and He keeps us…and O my…how patient He is with us.

 

I suppose I should also mention that praying without ceasing is something we all need to learn from our Father and Lord Jesus. We can see it modeled in others, we can learn some things from others about prayer in its many forms, but there are places where only you can go in our Father – I cannot go there for you and you cannot go there for me. The Scriptures give us many expressions of prayer, many forms, many images, and the Holy Spirit can draw us into them and can plant them within us – and so we ought to know His Word – I think this is critical.

 

On the other hand, I do not think teaching others “techniques” and methods is generally helpful. Yes, perhaps for a time they can be as training wheels on a child’s bicycle – and if they are treated that way it is one thing, but to think that certain forms and techniques are for adult bicyclists is…I think…not wise. Our relationship with the Trinity is organic, therefore our lives of prayer are organic. Let us remember that the Word of God, the Scriptures, are organic – they are living in Christ, displaying Christ, and drawing us into the Trinity.

 

Praying without ceasing is a charge to us as individuals, as husbands and wives, as families, and as congregations.

 

How are we responding to this holy charge?

 

Postscript: The longest book of the Bible, Psalms, is a book of prayers; so let us not be so foolish as to discount the value of written prayers, including those embedded in liturgies. Written prayers can be a framework in which we commune with God and can give us freedom to go ever deeper and higher in Him – as individuals and as His People. Those who are accustomed to written prayers often forget what they have in Christ because the prayers are familiar, and those who discount the holiness of written prayers miss riches that they could have in Christ. Psalm 23 is more real to me today than yesterday and I have known it since I was a young child. If you are a pastor, elder, or teacher – have you written a prayer for your people to pray together? If not, why not? Some of us can bake cakes and cookies, you can bake a prayer for others.