The Light of Home, the Smile of Friends

This past Friday I enjoyed being with family and friends at a bountiful Thanksgiving feast. Yes, the official Thanksgiving holiday was last Thursday, but my brother and his family (who live next door to me) spent Thanksgiving Day with my sister-in-law’s family, leaving just me and my parents as the only ones around on Thanksgiving Day. Rather than preparing a whole Thanksgiving dinner for only two people (for those of you who do not know, I am no longer able to eat food in the normal sense, and receive all my nourishment from a nutritional formula given via a feeding tube), we just decided to wait a day and have our big Thanksgiving dinner with my brother and his family on Friday instead of Thursday. A few of my good friends and a good family friend also joined us for our Thanksgiving meal.

A big part of the Thanksgiving tradition is eating good food, which makes Thanksgiving a little bit of an interesting holiday for me, given the fact that I cannot eat food :-). Notwithstanding this, Thanksgiving is still a holiday that I really enjoy. Though I cannot enjoy the good food, I really do enjoy the good company of beloved family and friends. As we were sitting around and visiting and playing games after dinner I truly felt a wonderful feeling of quiet, profound joy. I love these people, my wonderful family and good friends, and I love being around them, just being in their presence and enjoying their company. I have been profoundly struck and deeply impressed by this significant truth as I have reflected and pondered upon that wonderful evening spent with my family and friends.

There are countless blessings in my life for which I am very grateful. God, He who is my Father in Heaven, has truly blessed me with an abundant and bountiful cornucopia of wondrous and sublime blessings. Some of the greatest gifts among all those that the Lord has so graciously given to me are my wonderful family and my dear friends, who are great and fantastic people that truly bless and enrich my life in wondrous and magnificent ways. Each one of them is a very treasured and precious blessing in my life that I am profoundly thankful for and feel so undeserving of. I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for the good, amazing and wonderful people that He has placed in my life.

To all of my dear family members and my wonderful friends, please know that I love and appreciate you and that I am so very thankful for all of the blessings and joy that you have brought and continue to bring into my life. How empty and desolate my life would be if you were not a part of it! Words really cannot adequately express and fully convey how much you mean to me. Thank you so much for all you have done and continue to do to enrich and bless my life. I pray that the Lord will bless and keep you, and help you with whatever challenges you may be facing in your lives.

Truly, the light of home (i.e. family) and the smile of friends are blessings for which I am deeply and profoundly thankful. And this very much includes my family and friends that have passed through the doors of death and departed this life. I look forward to one day having a joyous reunion with them in the next life when my time comes to depart this life. I conclude this entry by quoting the lyrics from the beautiful hymn/prayer, "Thou Gracious God, Whose Mercy Lends," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, followed by a video of the performance of this wondrous and magnificent song by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. This hymn expresses the prayer and gratitude of my heart and I feel that it is a very fitting and appropriate benediction to what I have written in this post.

Thou gracious God, whose mercy lends
the light of home, the smile of friends,
our gathered flock thine arms enfold
as in the peaceful days of old.

Wilt thou not hear us while we raise
in sweet accord of solemn praise
the voices that have mingled long
in joyous flow of mirth and song?

For all the blessings life has brought,
for all its sorrowing hours have taught,
for all we mourn, for all we keep,
the hands we clasp, the loved that sleep.

The noontide sunshine of the past,
these brief, bright moments fading fast,
the stars that gild our darkening years,
the twilight ray from holier spheres.

We thank thee, Father; let thy grace
our loving circle still embrace,
thy mercy shed its heavenly store,
thy peace be with us evermore.