Thanksgiving is a time when we are reminded of all the ways we’ve been blessed. Sometimes we go back and look at the blessings we’ve taken for granted for a long time and realize the weight of them — the ability to read, a device to read this post on, internet so this post can exist. When we start to look at the world through the lens of “what have I taken for granted?” we can see things in our lives that we wouldn’t notice before.

Likely, you’re reading this in a comfortable room, wearing clothes you picked out at a store, maybe enjoying a snack or a warm drink.

How often do we take those things for granted? How often do we forget to thank God for the ways he’s blessed us in our day to day life?

Let’s change that and take a moment to acknowledge the ways we’ve been blessed and think of a few ways we can bless others because of it.

Here are some places to start:

• Do I have clothes in my closet? Do I have extra clothes I don’t ever wear? Where can I donate those clothes to bless others this year?
• Do I have plans to gather family together for Thanksgiving dinner? Do I know anyone who doesn’t have plans or family in the area? Can I invite them to join my family this year?
• Are there cans of food I have in my cupboard that I’m never going to eat? Do I have extra food? Can I find a place to donate to a food bank this year?

You can bring your whole family into this mentality.

Ask your kids:

• Are there any toys you don’t play with anymore? Would you like to bless someone else with a toy this year? Which toy, and who can we give it to?

You may find that your kids have a ton of extra clothes they don’t wear all the time or don’t like. Let them help you bring their extra clothes to donate.

We often think of getting rid of what we don’t need any more in the spring for spring cleaning, but what if we added in a second time, when people are more in need than the rest of the year as winter draws near, and created a “Fall Giving?”

Start by looking for the things you take for granted, thank God for them, and then look into options to share how you’ve been blessed or help others, who don’t have what you take for granted, get access to or have the things you depend on.

We wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving! If you’d like to learn more about how you can help out directly in the Littleton community on a regular basis, you’re welcome to volunteer at the Life Center and help others get what you take for granted.

Want even more ways to get involved? Check out what we’re doing for our Food Drive and Christmas Toy Drive. We look forward to serving with you!

It’s November, the month best known as “Time to do the Christmas shopping” and “Oh wait, I need to remember how to cook a turkey.”

By the time Thanksgiving rolls around and you’re asking your family what they’re grateful for, it can be difficult to think of anything. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Especially if you start early on in the month, you have a chance to start shifting your mindset so when it comes time to say something you’re thankful for, you’ll be able to pick one of many rather than scrambling for one.

What’s a simple way to do this?

1 | Pick a friend (or a journal).

2 | Tell your friend (or write in your journal) three things you’re grateful for every day.

This will be difficult at first, since we often live in a mindset that focuses on how things went wrong, rather than how things went right. But by practicing with our friends or our journal, we can easily turn this into a prayer of thanksgiving every day.

When you start looking for things to be thankful for rather than things to be angry about, you’ll start to see them in your day to day life. You can be grateful for all sorts of things — coffee, health, a car, and a job come to mind right now, and that’s off the top of my head.

You can do it, too. And of the above options, I suggest a friend over a journal, or maybe do both. The reason it can be helpful to tell a friend is that you’ll have someone asking you what you’re grateful for today. A journal can’t talk to you, but a person can. A person can remind you of your goals and why you started doing this in the first place. Even more than that, though, a person can celebrate with you and be thankful with you. That community is priceless.

We live in a world where some of the most popular stories are those of superheroes and people with crazy powers. As humans, we love to be amazed and intrigued. That’s why we watch movies such as Superman or Avengers. It’s why magic shows have been around as long as they have, showcasing illusionists and why, when it’s all said and done, you don’t really want to know how the magician pulled a rabbit out of his hat.

Jesus’ ministry was full of really cool things like those. Some of the stories of what he did are things we’d expect to see from superheroes in fiction, designed to amaze and entertain.

But not only were Jesus’ miracles actual miracles – as in, he actually healed the blind and sick (John 9), actually drove out demons (Matthew 8), and actually turned plain well water into really impressive wine (John 2) – these stories aren’t fiction.

Jesus’ miracles aren’t illusions or magic tricks, and they really happened.

For shortened versions of the stories where we learn of his miracles, we can look at the Gospel of Mark.

That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was. | Mark 1:32-34

In three short verses Mark describes how Jesus healed “many who had various diseases” after “the whole town gathered at the door.” Now, we don’t know how big the town was, but to have an entire town gather at one door means there was a large crowd, and they all wanted to know if what Jesus had done for one woman, healing, could be done for all of them.

Spoiler alert: it could be done for them, and it was.

Another time when Jesus did the seemingly impossible is when he calmed the storm.

A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him,

“Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” | Mark 4:37-41

It’s interesting that after Jesus does what the disciples asked him to, he asks them, “Why are you so afraid?” And even after he’s asked this, they feel inclined to ask each other, “Who is this?” because they were terrified. God’s power can be scary at times, because we often don’t know how to comprehend it. We know it would be nice if the scary thing, the wind and waves, could just up and disappear, but we haven’t thought about what would happen if that did actually happen. Not only can it actually happen, but the display of power on God’s part often leads us, in our mortality, to be scared, or more aptly, terrified. But Jesus’s next question is possibly more important: “Do you still have no faith?”

At this point, he has essentially revealed who he was. He has given them ample reason, ample proof, for them to have faith in him. Yet they still don’t see it.

Let’s not be like them, at least not in this instance.

One of the most important miracles Jesus did, however, even more important than healing the sick and calming the waves, was his resurrection after the cross. Mark doesn’t continue the story as long as Matthew, Luke, and John, but he does include the vital verses that describe the empty tomb and the message from the angels.

As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” | Mark 16:5-7

This miracle is the most important miracle, because Jesus’ death and resurrection secured our salvation from the death we chose in the Garden of Eden. (Don’t know what I’m talking about? Read about it in Genesis Chapters 1-3.)

John summed up the main point nicely in John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

It’s easy to want Jesus’ miracles to have happened. It’s also easy to write those miracles off as illusions or tricks. But writing them off says we don’t believe Jesus either A. tells the truth or B. is actually capable of doing what we read he did.

What we believe about his miracles directly ties into what we believe about the resurrection, and our belief about that is of eternal importance.

If you have questions about what you’ve just read, I suggest going back to the source. Take a moment to read through the Gospel of Mark, and then reach out to us. We’d love to connect with you and help you wrestle through whatever questions you may have. Send us an email so we can help you get connected to people who can help you dig deeper into the Gospel.