Thankfuls, 2024

On this Thanksgiving Eve, with a sermon I should be writing for tomorrow, I instead take time to renew this annual tradition, this year with a first-ever morning publication.

Even with two teenagers in our house, we end each night with prayer time. We don’t always get all the kids at the same time, but we take time with each of them to close out the day in prayer. The center of our nightly prayers, between “Now I lay me…” and the Lord’s Prayer, is our “thankfuls.” In a broken world with so much uncertainty, fear, and struggle, it can be easy to focus on what’s wrong. There are times when we should focus on what’s wrong. But it is so good to end the day with gratitude. Our lives are so full, and God is so very good. I pray that you have much to be thankful for, too.

So, without further ado, here are my 2024 thankfuls:

• Door County
• Otters
• John 6 – so much bread of life!
• Greta, gifted in so many ways, but most of all with a kind heart
• Carpools
• Merry and Pippin
• Bacon
• LEGO
• A new couch in a cozy basement
• 12 years and 200,000 miles from the old Pilot
• Bobby Witt, Jr.
• Green bean casserole
• Excellent pastoral colleagues, and not being in this alone
• New socks
• The privilege to preach the Word
• Baseball cards
• Anders, a teenager! Fun and goofy and smart and sporty and empathetic
• The pastors of Central Lutheran who cared so well for Mom
• Kofola
• Naps
• Amor Towles
• Henry, our fourth child
• Getting to see a playoff game in KC
• The Royals not stinking at baseball
• Good friends
• Good bread
• Airbnbs with ping pong tables
• Walkies
• The Griswold family Christmas tree
• Driving kids everywhere and the time with them this gives me
• Sweeping 2024 Lyle Family Miniature Golfapalooza
• Birthday mornings
• Coffee
• “Possum”
• Grace Lutheran School
• Karl Ove Knausgaard
• Thanksgiving dinner
• Pasquatch
• Torsten the terrific, rink rat and morning cuddle buddy
• Knowing as much about the U.S. Constitution as a 7^th grader
• My Mom, and the legacy she’s left behind
• A nice cabernet
• Pinochle
• The joy of coaching baseball and friends made along the way
• The members of Grace, who live out the Gospel so well
• The USWNT, golden again
• Phish at Alpine
• Captain Salvy
• Mariah Carey’s Christmas music, unironically and unashamedly
• Democracy, with prayers that it endures
• Peace, with prayers that it breaks forth
• Our Slovak friends, and going back next year
• Erika, always
• Jesus Christ, the sure and certain hope for all creation

I pray that your Thanksgiving holiday, whatever shape it takes, is filled with the gifts of faith, hope, and love. I’m thankful for you.