A Story of Thanksgiving

Two weeks ago, on Veterans Day, I shared with you a story about my father. Dad was severely wounded in World War II and barely survived. After ten months in hospitals in England and Virginia, he finally returned to Tennessee.

Though Tennessee was the Promised Land, the land my father had sought for so many months, and though the joy of being home was great, so also was the pain. It was constant, unrelenting. He told Mother his legs felt like they were on fire every waking moment. And there were not enough other moments.

At times, Mother still recalls Dad would say, "I'd just be better off dead. I can't take this anymore."

Infections still frequently raged in his legs, and the family physician treated him with the penicillin that repeatedly saved his life. But the doctor also treated him for more than his physical injuries, for Dad talked with Dr. Wilson about suicide. The physician later told my mother he counseled Dad this way:

"Don't you have something to be thankful for every day?"

"You have Mary and the children. Think of what it would mean to them if you did what you're thinking about."

Then the doctor added a more hopeful note, "Maybe someday we can get rid of this pain."

With the love of my Mother and older brother and sister (I was not yet born), and with the encouragement and friendship of other veterans, family, and neighbors, somehow Dad endured. Eventually more than endured.

He went to law school on the G.I. Bill. He continued working three days a week in West Tennessee and attended classes four days a week almost 200 miles away in Middle Tennessee.

I was born about the same time he got the news that he had passed the bar exam. He hung out his shingle, a 41-year-old disabled veteran and father of three, and started over again.

I'm thankful for Dad's courage and Mother's strength. For their seeing the blessings in life and enduring the hardships. For their hope that helped them through the pain.

So many Tennessee families are struggling. These are difficult days, in some ways the most difficult many of us have ever known.

Many older Tennesseans, however, bring historical perspective and hope. Tom Brokaw with good reason called them, "The Greatest Generation." They overcame The Great Depression and the most powerful militaries in human history.

So many of that greatest generation were also the most thankful generation. They were thankful for their blessings. Countless were the times Mom or Dad would say, "Aren't we blessed? We have so much to be thankful for."

And we also have so much to be thankful for. May this Thanksgiving be a time when we count our blessings, give thanks to our Creator and to those who love us, and renew the hope that will help us through the hardships, the hope that can come as we overcome these hardships.

If you'll tolerate this former minister sharing a favorite verse, consider from Romans 5 words that Paul seems to have written for such a time as this: "we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us..."

May you and yours have a blessed Day of Giving Thanks.

Your friend,

Roy