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Several years ago, my mother-in-law came to visit us in Nebraska with the sole purpose I believe of teaching me how to make her lefse. I had almost all the tools given to us as a wedding gift; the griddle, the turner, the rolling pin, and the potato ricer, but no lefse sock for the rolling pin. We set out together in search of the sock and visited at least three different hardware stores to find it and not a single store clerk knew what we were talking about. Lefse? Rolling pin sock? Nope, never heard of it. Clearly, we were not in Scandinavian territory anymore. My mother-in-law was confused, “what kind of place is this,” she asked?
We find ourselves today in unfamiliar territory. A time in our collective history where we wonder, what kind of place is this? Or to say the same thing differently we might echo the words of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, “We aren’t in Kansas anymore.” Like God’s people the Israelites we find ourselves in a wilderness moment, in a dessert we have named 2020 and we just want out. In those wilderness moments the Israelites raised their complaints to God. “What kind of place is this? Did you bring us here to die? Why have you done this to us?”
I believe to my core that it is in the wilderness moments of life, times when we are wandering in dry places, that God can be seen most clearly. It is in the uncomfortable and unfamiliar places where we are most vulnerable, and God uses those places to grow us up from a spirit of complaint into a spirit of thanksgiving. God did not bring us to this place in time to leave us or forsake us, but rather to lead us to a place of gratitude for all that God has provided and will continue to provide. In Christ, we have been given all the tools we need to find our place wherever we are, and so on this eve of Thanksgiving Day, join me in giving thanks to God for he alone is good and his steadfast love endures in every time and in every place. Amen.
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