I thank God for you...

(A.S. family picture from our planning retreat)

"I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers"

Ephesians 1:16

As I reflect on the many things I'm thankful for during this Thanksgiving weekend, I think of one of the greatest things I am thankful for - the amazing community of friends that God has given me. I am thankful for friends who know me and love me - who have seen the good and the bad in me, and still love me. I am thankful for friends who draw me out - who don't take my surface answers when they ask "How are you doing?" and seek out how I'm really doing. I'm thankful for friends who hold me when I'm broken and hopeless, crying my eyes out. I'm thankful for friends who sit with me and come alongside of me, who don't try to fix me, who aren't surprised by me - but love me in my brokenness and show me God's presence - that the intensity of my emotions, my sin, my failures, my fears, my insecurities, my pain don't separate me from God's love.

As Henry Nouwen says in the book In the Name of Jesus:

"We are not the healers, we are not the reconcilers, we are not the givers of life. We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who need as much care as anyone we care for. The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God."

Thanks for being a vessel of God's love to me.