Every year since my children and now ex-wife flew the coop I’ve joined in with my daughters for Thanksgiving at North Coast Calvary Church (NCCC) up off Aviara Parkway in Carlsbad with Pastor Mark Foreman (I also attend Saturday evening services there. Sunday mornings I attend “The Anchor” at Santa Fe Christian in Solana Beach with Rick Myatt and when in Puerto Vallarta at Calvary Christian with Pastor Bill Martin).
I don’t know if all churches provide Thanksgiving dinners but it sure beats having to start at 5 a.m. with a turkey and then spend all day with the fixin’s. I can go play a round of golf in the morning and then go straight to the church to meet my daughters afterwards along with many others. They even have the football game playing on a mega screen. The food of course is excellent and it’s all free. Of course you are welcome to leave a tithing offering if you’d like but it isn’t necessary
Thanksgiving is one day….in fact the entire four days off…are days that we should reflect and be grateful for all that we have. First off, we’re so dang lucky to live in this country and enjoy all the freedoms we have been afforded by a solid Constitution written by brilliant men (and women in the background) so many years ago.
A good friend and golfing buddy pulled me aside the other day. As many of you who follow my column know, I am a practicing Christian. In fact my daughter and I have written a book about Heaven. Nevertheless, my friend John is 81 and as long as I’ve known him he’s at best agnostic and more likely a self-avowed atheist. Anyway, he pulls me over while walking down the fairway the other day and he said he was watching the weather channel when he watched an interview with a little 7-year-old girl. Apparently the girl said that she was visited by Jesus and was told that Jesus loves her very much and that her parents would be going to heaven very soon but that He wanted her to know that He was going to be with her always and that she should know that and that she will understand everything one day when she goes to heaven.
The little girl had told her parents and schoolteacher what had happened and they insisted that she was just having a dream. The little girl said it wasn’t a dream.
About a week or two after this chance meeting occurred the little girl’s house was hit by a tornado. The little girl’s mother and father were killed and she survived. When the local news found out about the little girl’s story they sought her out for an interview. The journalists that went to speak with her were blown away.
She told her story again and, according to the journalists, she was very much at peace. The journalists couldn’t believe or understand her peace until she told them that Jesus said he was going to take care of her parents and that all of them would be waiting for her when it was her time to go “home” to heaven. The little girl missed her parents but believed they were being well taken care of in “heaven.”
I bring this story up because sometimes it takes something like that to prove to people that we are not just drifting sands passing through a speck in time. We are truly spirit and God is in us and with us always. We just have to believe it and then trust in Him. My friend is no longer an agnostic or atheist. A simple story touched his heart and now he doesn’t feel so alone anymore.
Thanksgiving is a time to cherish those that love us, like family and close friends.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone and may God bless you always!
