I have mixed feelings about the holiday of Thanksgiving. It’s an introvert thing probably, and having struggles with trying to live up to the expectations people bring to holidays.

I’ve written about that before. Like the time my mom discouraged me from having pie after the Thanksgiving Eve service: Store-bought chocolate cream pie

And a couple times I’ve written about the loaves and fishes Jesus gave thanks for and how that might help our reservations about being thankful today: here’s the post from 2013.

And five years ago, I shared a prayer that I had prayed with and for my hospital coworkers, just a month before moving into a month with the most deaths our hospital had ever had. And then I shared it the next year.

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God-
We need to be honest.
It’s hard to be grateful for all the loss and grief this year. For some of us, this has been the hardest year we’ve ever seen. Thank you that you don’t expect us to be happily grateful for the loss of loved ones.

And yet, thank you that you are with us in that loss.
And there are things that we are grateful for.

• Thanks for the remarkable people we work with.
• Thanks for all the days we weren’t sure we would make it, and we did.
• Thanks for a thousand decisions we needed wisdom for, and found it.
• Thanks for thousands of acts and conversations where our patients, our community, our coworkers knew that we cared as we walked away.
• Thanks for a thousand moments where we had the courage we needed, the peace that we needed, the rest that we needed. When we had what we needed.

God,
Thank you for us.
Thank you for you.

Amen.

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This Thanksgiving, I’m spending the first shift at the hospital. It will be lighter than five years ago there. But it will still be heavy for many of you.

So here’s a blessing for you:

It is hard, my friends. I love you. I’m grateful we get to be here, in hard moments, together. Present at a virtual table with God.

Amen.