Lonely on Thanksgiving

Every year about this time of year I am reminded if just how lucky I am. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas finds me absolutely surrounded with family and friends that love me. It's overwhelming almost to think of how loved I truly am. Not everyone has this same experience on the holidays though, there are people all around me to whom Thanksgiving is a truly lonely holiday. People with little to no family who are in special need of love during this time of year.

Jesus himself was drawn to people who were left out. The woman at the well in John 4 is an excellent example of someone who was largely left out by society whom he made a concerted effort to make feel like she mattered. She had to come to the well after the other women just to avoid their stares and gossip. There are people in your life right now, whether you know it or not, to whom the holidays are not occasions of joy but of loneliness. They see people like me who are smothered by family and love, and they no that there is none of that for them. Their family is either not present or doesn't care and their friends are too busy basking in their own fulfillment to bother showing some love to their hurting friend. There are military families with husbands and wives overseas. There are widows and widowers, orphans, and broken families. All whom are in need of love and affection. All of whom we all too often overlook on the holidays because we are so busy with ourselves.

Those of us who can't even count the number of people we are blessed to have be a part of our holidays need to make sure that we make time and room in our homes and in our hearts for those who have less than we do.  It doesn't take much to show someone you love them. Having them for dinner or taking it to them, going out together, and just spending time. There's no currency of love greater than time. It's time for people like me to give of the overflow of love in our lives to those who are in need during the holidays, and to make it a time that's a little less lonely for the hurting people around us.