It’s Thanksgiving week! This is my favorite season of the the year – one of my favorite holidays of the year – with the 4th of July being the other. There’s something to be said about a season that brings out the desire to bake and a holiday where the only expectation is directed at food and family. No one is going to get butt-hurt about a gift they received… because there are no gifts! No pressure in that area! On the other hand, food preparation – especially when it comes to a meal that the holiday of Thanksgiving requires – can hold a lot of pressure. I told my husband that I would commit to preparing ONE holiday meal per year. Just one. I wasn’t about to sign up for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I have always picked Thanksgiving. And there’s only one year that I didn’t cheat.
We’re rounding the corner to our 12th anniversary, and I’ve prepared the Thanksgiving meal for all of those years except last year (and this year’s Thanksgiving as well). For all of those that I hosted, I did the basting and brining turkey jig only once. The first year, I committed, invited… and then panicked. I was confident in my cooking skills only as far as the Hamburger Helper box went, and they didn’t offer a full Thanksgiving spread. What was this cheeseburger-macaroni-girl supposed to do? I didn’t know anything about making a brine for the turkey – I didn’t even have a meat thermometer – and I barely knew what that was used for. My boxed-meal repertoire was failing me. I was completely overwhelmed with all of the gazillion ways the turkey could go wrong – same with the ham (in my infinite wisdom, I bought a ham that was not fully cooked).
While I was shopping for all of the many ingredients for the many casseroles that I had put on the menu, I decided to try a walk of bravery and check out the refrigerated bin that held all of the turkeys. If I showed a brave face, maybe one of them would cower and cook well for me. Guess what I found?!?! I discovered that I must not be the only person intimidated by a stuffed bird (Warning: they’re stuffed with nastiness that you have to un-stuff before you stuff with other stuff). Someone, bless them, decided to come up with a turkey that goes “from freezer, to oven, to perfect” (that’s probably a trademark, so don’t quote me on that). I stood there, in one of the frozen food isles, with tears streaming down my face… so happy that I had found the Hamburger Helper version of Thanksgiving turkey prep. Fine, so I didn’t actually cry tears of gratitude, but I did load one of those turkeys into my shopping cart with a smile taking up the majority of my face and feeling as though a great weight had been lifted.
Since that time, the Thanksgiving of 2010, I’ve searched out and purchased the oven-ready turkeys. I’ve also learned that buying the fully cooked ham is absolutely delicious without the fear of poisoning my entire household (that first year, I was in a panic and had to call my mom, who is kosher, for help on how to cook a ham!). I prepare all of the casseroles and desserts the day before, and buying the pies tastes just fine instead of the pressure of baking them from scratch (Confession: I’ve never actually made made a pie).
As the years went on, I did attempt to do the turkey myself – thawing, brining, and burning (just kidding – it didn’t burn… much). I only did it that way so that I could prove to myself that I could do it. If it had turned out better than the other way, then I might have done it again. It’s amazing, though, what can happen as a person’s confidence grows. I went from boxed dinner kits (not knocking it – they fed my family for a couple years) to using a meat thermometer! I went from boxed dinners filling up the pantry to not even looking at them when walking down the isle at the store.
If you stopped by to read this post in hopes that it would be a lesson centered around Thanksgiving, I hope you’ll continue reading even though I’m not focusing on gratitude and how beneficial having a grateful heart can be. Perhaps it’s the rebel in me, but 99% of blog posts, articles, sermons, and such are themed according to the holidays. Not a bad thing; just not something I want to do today.
When I think about the first couple of years of our marriage, I cringe at the menu I provided for my family. I used salmon in boxed pasta dishes, managed to make Hamburger Helper to the point of never wanting it again, and grilled cheese is not the healthiest, well balanced meal out there. But they were starting points. I look at my pantry now and there aren’t boxed meals, but there are ingredients.
Our journeys of faith are a lot like my cooking journey. But how often do Christians come to the cross… and stay there? They recognize their need for a Savior, they hear the Word of Truth and come to the cross… but they never move beyond that? They decide that a boxed pasta meal is good enough. This meal is so easy to have… All I have to do is keep my pew appointment.
Hebrews 5-6 warn us about staying immature, about only consuming milk and not solid food, and that there are things that accompany salvation. We’re not called to stay at the cross. II Peter 1 encourages us to add to our faith so that we can be effective and productive in our knowledge of God. Yes, it only takes mustard-seed-sized faith to move mountains, but imagine what our faith could do if we had the whole mustard tree!
As you start cooking this week, or merely buying a pie as a contribution (we tease my sister-in-law that she can be tasked with bringing the drinks), I hope you’ll take a split second to remember that in order to have the table piled high with food, you have to start somewhere else. Whether it’s a trip to the store or preheating the oven, faith starts somewhere. Just don’t stay where it started. Get to know God and His goodness. Get to know how much He loves you – not how much your pastor says God loves you. There’s a huge difference in having a conversation with God and hearing about someone else’s conversation with God.
Stop being satisfied with the boxed dinner kits. Complacency suffocates faith. Let’s dare to try a new recipe; let’s dare to explore the depths of who God is. Let’s grow steadily in our faith, giving thanks for the sacrifice at the cross that we started with, and moving towards maturity and oneness with the One who Saved us. I hope you’ll join me next week as I go a bit deeper on effectual faith and productive passion. Until then, I pray that you’ll all have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving – from my family to yours.