Casting Nets
Sharing our gifts just feels good

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! Almost everywhere we turn, we can see signs, news and TV newscasts, reminding us of the needs of those around us and encouraging us to support those good causes.

Because of our responses, numerous persons and families will have food and warmth for their Thanksgiving. Some may have given out of a sense of duty, others to avoid feelings of guilt, and still others because they have learned the joys of sharing with others. That's a joy and inner satisfaction felt in no other act.

I read an account of a church that received the names of 10 families who needed help to provide a Thanksgiving dinner. People from the church brought the items needed and divided the items into 10 boxes which they placed on a table for the 10 families to pick up. Then, to their surprise, an 11th family walked in. They had driven up in a dilapidated pickup truck a father, mother, and three children. Someone told them food was being distributed. The pastor explained that they had just gotten enough for 10 boxes, but he would see what he could do.

One of the women, who had already received her box and was about to go out the door, turned around and went back and placed her box back on the table. She pulled out another box from under the table and began unloading some of the items from her box into the empty box. Each of the others went to their boxes, took some items of food out of their boxes and placed them into the eleventh box, until the 11th box had more than any of the other 10 boxes. Then, they turned and gave the box to the new family. What a wonderful expression of the true spirit of Thanksgiving.

May each of us have a blessed Thanksgiving along with feelings of gratitude for the good gifts of life and the joy that comes with sharing those good gifts.