I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. Ephesians 1:16
As we are now in the fall season and temperatures have started to cool down a bit, we start thinking about Thanksgiving. This Thanksgiving will be like none that we have experienced before, and families are having to make difficult decisions about how they will celebrate Thanksgiving. It is easy to get incredibly stressed out, depressed, and frustrated at trying to figure out how do we get together with our families during a pandemic. Or do we make the decision not to get together in person and perhaps meet on Zoom. That stress can change our attitude and we start feeling less grateful for our many blessings.
While we are getting ready for the Thanksgiving season, we need to have the attitude of gratitude, and right now one of the groups that we are most grateful for are our healthcare workers. We have been praying for health care workers since the very beginning of this pandemic. Thanking God for their service and praying for their strength and health during this time. We are going to step that up and collect handwritten or handmade thank you cards for the workers at Orange Coast Hospital. We would love to have 100s of cards to give them to show our gratitude for their hard work and dedication.
We will collect cards in the church office on Monday, November 2 – Thursday, November 19. That way I can deliver them to the hospital on the 23rd, right before Thanksgiving. Often, when we start focusing on others, it creates a change in our attitudes. It can help us to realize how blessed we are and thankful we are to God and others and that can help put our hearts and spirits in a better place. It is my hope that this will help create an attitude of gratitude in our hearts and help us to put life into perspective and remember that we have so many blessings, and people in our lives to be grateful to and to remember them in our prayers.
I have some small blessing cards you can color and write a note on the back if you need a little push to get your creative juices flowing. They will be on the counter in the church office for pick one and take home to color and bring back.
Stay safe and be the hope you wish to see in the world.
Suzanne