PRISON FELLOWSHIP: Thanksgiving

On paper, my nephew should never have become addicted to drugs. He was a bright young man raised in a wonderful home by godly parents. And yet, he traded it all in for his substance abuse, leaving his heartbroken family behind when he went to prison.

“So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me.’” – John 11:41

Jesus had a friend named Lazarus who died of an illness. By the time Jesus arrived at the home of Lazarus’s grieving sisters, Mary and Martha, Lazarus had been dead for four days, and his body was sealed in a tomb with a large, heavy stone.

In moments of challenge, you and I have two options: We can yield to anxiety, or we can choose thanksgiving. We can rejoice in our secure spiritual inheritance. We can rest in God’s promises of provision. We can trust the One who holds us in the palms of His nail-scarred hands.

My wife Cathy’s family calls this time of year ThanksMas. As Cathy’s brothers married, and we all moved away and starting having kids, her family made up this holiday to create a time to gather. The meal consists of both Thanksgiving and Christmas fare, and we give gifts.

President Abraham Lincoln signed a document in 1863, declaring a day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens” to fall on the last Thursday in November.

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Day proclamation came not at the victorious conclusion of the war, as might have been expected, but in the midst of its stormiest days, when the future of the country was far from certain.

Don’t look now, but the holiday season is right around the corner. Thanksgiving is only two weeks away, immediately followed by the retail-driven Black Friday and Cyber Monday, encouraging people to go out and start making their Christmas purchases.

And then there is Giving Tuesday.

I’ve been to lots of prisons, but this past week was a first: I saw the hula being doing behind bars!

I had the privilege of going to Saguaro Correctional Facility to visit inmates who are from Hawaii, but are doing their time in Arizona.