Giving thanks from the British Isles

I am a citizen of the United States of America, having spent the past three Thanksgiving holidays across the Atlantic in the small principality of Wales. One great thing about life in the United Kingdom: I get a five to eight hour start on celebrating American holidays! By the time most of my family and friends are just getting their morning cup of coffee, I'm having lunch in the middle of the day. In spite of our over-inflated national pride, lingering racism, swaggering cowboy politics, myopic self-centeredness in international affairs, love affair with materialism, and a host of other social ills, I celebrate this Thanksgiving Day with three hundred million other Americans as I count my blessings.

I am thankful that I grew up poor in a dozen small towns of central and north Mississippi, because my father believed in working his way up from reading gas meters to managing a small-town utility company; and he was willing to walk away from that promising career when the company asked him to sacrifice his commitment to his family. When my parents couldn't pay the bills, they took in lodgers and my father started over with a new employer and retired about ten years ago. I love him deeply for his sacrifice and hard work.

I am thankful that my parents took me to church from birth, where I met people who sincerely believed the truth of the Bible and who taught me about Jesus Christ. I am thankful that God’s grace surprised and awakened a freckled-face, hyper-committed, fifteen-year-old church member to the reality of sin and the need for forgiveness, bringing me powerfully to the Savior and giving me new life. I am thankful that the evidence of God’s grace was immediate and clear: my racism evaporated in an instant and I became a serious student of Scripture. In just a couple of years—while serving in the military—I began proclaiming the gospel and thinking about ways to serve the Lord Jesus with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

I am thankful for being a Vietnam veteran who vountarily enlisted during that conflict, partly because I wanted to serve my county and partly because it gave me access to a university education that my parents could not afford to give me or my three siblings. Except for the G.I. Bill, I am thankful that I have never received a penny of government welfare assistance or unemployment benefits, although I have contributed tens of thousands of dollars in taxes and Social Security contributions.

I am thankful for my wife of thirty-one years. Together, we have raised four children—now adults—without killing any of them and without losing our sanity. I am thankful that we decided early in our marriage to live on one income, so that we did not have to pay other people to raise our children. It made a lot of our other decisions so much simpler. I am thankful that my wife educated our four children at home, rather than relinquishing that privilege to the government who seem hell-bent on making children passive recipients of whatever "politically correct" doctrines they deem appropriate at the time, versus giving them a solid education so they can read and write when they graduate twelve (or is it fifteen?) years later.

I am thankful for my children: each one of them a unique gift from God, like arrows in a man’s quiver. As they have reached adulthood, I have entrusted them to God’s care and guidance, thankfully embracing a strong conviction that His Word and Spirit will take them forward even when I sometimes worry that they will lose their way in this troubled world.

I am thankful for my four grandchildren, including the one God still knits together in my unmarried daughter’s womb, even though I miss them terribly since they live so far away. May they understand one day the sacrifices of serving the Lord in a foreign land: giving up home and nation, prosperity and convenience, family and friends, all for the sake of those who live in spiritual darkness. I am thankful that one day our present and future grandchildren will be a representative mosaic of the nations because of our decision to live in Wales—they will be English, Welsh, Hispanic, and American (Southern-fried Rednecks to be exact).

I am thankful for the land and the people of Wales. They have welcomed us so warmly and confirmed our suspicions that God’s grace is not confined to the borders of the United States. The glory of God can readily be seen in the majestic beauty of our mission field, although unseen and unappreciated by the vast majority of its residents. I am thankful for daily opportunities to interact and build relationships with people who have never known another Christian—not up close—until the hand of providence has brought us together. I am thankful for the spiritual poverty that has created such an obvious thirst in the hearts of young people and adults who have tried everything else, except the water of life, in vain.

I am thankful for those who support us financially, both here in Wales and in the United States: individuals and small groups of Christians who believe in what we’re doing and want to be part of it. I recognize that you could be giving your financial support to a thousand other worthy causes, but you have voluntarily chosen our little missionary enterprise. I thank God for you!

As I close this Thanksgiving Day reflection, I must also give thanks for the trials and difficulties of life here in the United Kingdom. As followers of Jesus, we are called to “be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). I am so thankful that God has placed us squarely in a place where we have to trust Him from day to day. We have no long-term plan other than to rest in His sovereign will, wherever that takes us. I am thankful for the dark days when discouragement and depression loom over me, for the unending questions that churn around in my mind over what it means to be salt and light in this culture, for the disappointments and the setbacks that have come our way, for the current struggles I face with ongoing tests for evidence of heart disease (and a long family history to go with it), and for the cultural differences that daily remind me that I am an outsider here who needs reminding “it’s not wrong, it’s just different.”

—Bill Lollar, The Thin Edge of the Wedge