In case you haven’t noticed, this month Americans have been super thankful. The evidence is all over Facebook. Thirty days of thankfulness posts almost overshadow the infamous Facebook drama and pictures of my friends’ kids.
You know, I could join my peers in giving you a list of things I’m thankful for. After all, I created this blog to share positivity and thankfulness. But I’d never have the time or space to give you a complete list of things I’m thankful for. I tried once to come up with a comprehensive list, but after a week of adding more than one hundred items, I concluded that my list would never be complete.
So instead of telling you to be thankful for the blessings in your life, I’m going to share a story I heard a few weeks ago.
During World War II things happened. People did things society normally doesn’t ask them to do; for one Christian family that meant hiding a Jewish family in their home. After some time, the Gestapo discovered the families and all were sent to a concentration camp.
The mothers were separated from their daughters and the fathers sent away too. But the two Christian sisters stuck together. They’d managed to sneak a Bible in and for some reason weren’t caught.
Sickness and disease ran rampant in the camp, but the sisters remained. Bugs gnawed at their skin and their clothing. They shared a space in an overcrowded barracks among others held prisoner. The guards didn’t bother this barrack often so the girls tended to stay inside where they were marginally safer.
One day the two girls sat reading their forbidden Bible. They came across 1 Thessalonians 5:18a which says “Give thanks in all circumstances.”
The younger of the two girls looked at her sister and asked, “Does that mean we should give thanks to God for the fleas?”
Although the question may have been asked rhetorically and with a tinge of bitterness, the two girls did thank God for the fleas.
One sister would not survive the war. However, the remaining sister would later find out that the reason the camp guards didn’t come into their barrack often was because of those pesky fleas. The guards would do horrible and awful things to the residents of the other barracks, but they didn’t want to get fleas on their uniforms so they avoided the barrack where the sisters lived in particular.
Indeed, give thanks for the fleas.
The moral of the story? I’ll let you decipher that one.
Maybe it’s just a neat story from a dark time in world history. But then again, maybe it’s not. Maybe we should be giving thanks for those things that torment us because we don’t know the reasoning why. Maybe the things that cause us trouble, or even pain, keep us safe from worse outcomes.
Instead of making endless lists with of obvious blessings, I’m going to be giving thanks for the “fleas” in my life. What about you?
Happy Thanksgiving, friends; may it keep off the fleas for a day.
A Happy Hawk 