Thanks-Living

I've been quite remiss in blogging lately. To those of you who have told me that you read my blog, I do apologize. To those of you who don't normally read...well...here's another try at giving you something interesting.

Last night I was driving by the church and I noticed that Dave (the guy who posts our marquee) put up the message, "Thanksgiving is Good, Thanks-Living is Better," and I have to say I really like that message. We are to be a thankful people. God reminds Israel all the time in the Old Testament--I'm the God who brought you out of Egypt and sustained you through the desert. He reminds them regularly that they should be thankful for these things. That's Thanksgiving. In the New Testament, Jesus caps it off by reminding us that the two greatest commandments are to Love God, and Love Others. That's Thanks-Living. The first is an attitude. The second is an action. When combined together they are what a Christ-follower is to do.

That brings me to the real reason I wanted to write this morning. Last Wednesday I got a call from a couple who were out at the truck stops and they needed some money for groceries. Now, I don't normally provide handouts to cold calls (I usually follow protocol and redirect them to Christian Churches United), but it must have been the Spirit's moving because I said, "Sure, I'll stop out with some gift cards." So after dinner I headed out to the Travel America Truck Stop on Rt. 39. When I went inside and asked the manager if he had a couple who was sort of living in their TV room, he asked me, "Which one?"

Which one?!?! You mean there's more than one family living in a truck stop?!?! That's terrible, but it's true. Apparently, when families hitchhike with 18-wheelers, they just sort of get left off until they can make another ride. And sometimes homeless families who have nothing but their cars will make these travel centers their home. It's warm, relatively safe, and there's a TV.

So that got me thinking...what are these people doing for Thanksgiving and Christmas? Fortunately, the TA will be open (it's a 24-hour center), but how many families will they be housing that night? Will anyone do anything about it? How is Christ being made known there? Is He present with the manager who chooses not to kick them out?

You know, I believe it was the Spirit's guidance that took me out there last week, to make me aware of a real problem that I naively thought didn't exist. We all do it. We try to pretend that poverty doesn't affect us, and for most of us if we can just stay away from Allison Hill and the more isolated parts of Uptown, we can usually avoid it. But there are people living in poverty around us. They wear makeup and put on an extra application of deodorant. They choose to skip lunch because they're "hard workers," and they leave at night right at quitting time, just like the rest of us. But it's when they go home (if only we could go home with them) that they face the reality of the problem. It's when they go home that they suffer in silence and we go on living in naivete. And it makes me wonder...how can we be people who celebrate Thanksgiving without practicing Thanks-Living?