An Early Thanksgiving Dinner

               Last Sunday evening, we had an early holiday dinner. R, our neighbor, is going to leave and visit her family out of the State, so she invited us to celebrate earlier.R is an orchestra teacher in a middle school. She got heavy burden to spread gospel and has done a lot to my family, especially for my teen son. One year ago, she and I started to pray for all of my family’s issues. Now we can count how perfectly God has intervened to solve those difficulties again and again. When I was weak in the spirit, she caught my hand and led me to the track from the Lord.
        
        We enjoyed the dinner with R’s prayer. She inquired about my son’s concert, my niece’s progress, and my sister’s challenges at school. Seriously, she handed out to a Bible to my son and discussed to him,” As the man of the house, would you please read Psalm charter 136 ? “ 5 minutes before, my son had whistled me that he wanted to go home to do homework. Now he took the Bible with a big “Sure!” Hearing those wonderful “His love endures forever,” everyone was touched and considering HIS love.

      Next, R encouraged everyone to take turns to talk about what we are thankful. I had too much to say but looking up my little boy, I Said, “I appreciate God gave me such an excellent son. I love you whatever happens!”

      Slowly and clearly, R mentioned,” I am thankful to have friends as you!”

      My niece was shy but she appreciate she can go to the school in America.My sister in law was excited, “I feel thankful we have a house to live here!”

      My son smiled like a gentleman with his dimple, “I am thankful for having opportunities to play violin!”

      We went around two more times, my son thought and said,” I am thankful to be able to the best school here.” “I thank my family for supporting me on everything!” I looked at R, and both of us smiled. We are so happy and proud of him, he is growing up a lot.

      Our next activity was playing UNO cards. My son stood up finally, “Excuse me, I got to go to do homework” I guess he may not want to play a room of ladies. R gave him a big hug and suggested, “Ok, we ladies will practice. How about next time your stay for 10 more minutes to play UNO with us?” “Sure!”
We learned UNO and R encouraged my niece try to beat my son next time. It was an easy but fun game.

      The last event was reading Our Daily Bread, which is a small gospel storybook with one Bible verse. It was hard for me to express my gratitude to R. How many delicious God’s words she has offered to my family in this complicated world? Even though my niece is still young and my sister in –law hesitant to the gospel, R attempted to plant seeds in their hearts through her words and actions with strong and deep love. I have to doubt, eventually, they will become members in the Lord’s kingdom because God really loves us.Praise the Lord we had such a nice Thanksgiving dinner!