There was a time when there were four dinner plates. They came in a set with four salad plates and four bowls, all lime green and white. We squeezed twelve people around a table made for six, and someone ran out to buy more silverware. I tried to make biscuits from scratch and spent most of our grocery money on imported cheese. We traded turkey for chicken and pretended like it was the same.
The next weekend they had us over to their house for lunch. We were served first, and some stood and waited for us to finish our meal so that the plates could be washed and others could be served. There weren’t enough plates for everyone, but it didn’t matter. There were tiny flowers painted on the edge of my plate, and more rice than I had ever eaten in one sitting.
In that season, there weren’t ever enough plates, but there was always more than enough rice. The lack of plates didn’t bother us, because it meant that we weren’t alone in a new country. We were making friends who were quickly becoming family, all squeezed in around the table. We didn’t know where to buy paper plates, or if they even existed, and we always hand washed the dishes.
We stumbled over language and tried our best to practice our accents, and we could always find the silver lining. In all of the moments of my life, those were the moments that taught me the most about being thankful. Maybe it was because we didn’t have many things. At first, we only had a mattress on the floor and a dresser, but we were aware even then of our abundance. That was when I learned that thankfulness wasn’t just about things.
That was when I learned how to see in the upside down kingdom of Jesus Christ. Instead of seeing lack, I saw abundance. Instead of seeing that there weren’t enough plates to set the table, I saw that God had given us an abundance of friends and community. Instead of wishing for more, I learned to live with less and be thankful for it.
That was the first Thanksgiving that my giving thanks wasn’t about my things. It was about not having enough dinner plates because the table was too full. It was about the tiny flowers painted on my dinner plate, and the feeling of that mother’s love poured out into a home cooked meal. It was about the conversations had around the sink while we were hand-washing the dishes. It was about finding family in another country, in another culture, in the body of Christ.
For all of the people here and there, for all of the lessons learned, for all of the memories made, and for all of the love shared, I am thankful.
With messy hair and wild grace,
Ellyn
