Thankful?

So I sit here on Thanksgiving Monday of 2010 after the hardest thanksgiving I have had in years. After the loneliest thanksgiving in years.

As I stood on the beach on Saturday night after my walk, Sufficient (Jennifer Jade Kerr) playing in my ears, I watched the sky turn dark. I stood there feeling the loneliest I have felt in a very long time. I stood and stared. I couldn't move; I didn't want to. And all I wanted was someone, anyone, to come and put their arm around me and give me a hug. Anyone would have done the trick, even a stranger. That is just how desperately lonely I was.

I walked up the beach and through the roads on the annual thanksgiving walk, surrounded by almost twenty people but still unbelievably lonely. I sat down to a delicious meal yesterday night with about 15 other people but still felt like I was sitting there all alone. This is not to say I wasn't in good company, because I was. My family is great; their was just something missing.

In the past I have had a peace at thanksgiving. I had many things to be thankful for and it would be all I could think about. This year I have a gaping hole of uncertainty. This hole has consumed me for months now. I would love to get rid of it. To fill it. I am just not sure how to do that right now. Well, I think I do, but right now I am not trusting my own instincts: I am trusting God's.

Anyways, that is enough of that. Onto the positive. What am I thankful for this year? It seems like a tricky question right now but I have to answer it in order to give me some pep. So here it goes:
1. I am thankful that school is going well. College seemed like a really scary thing but I am surviving. Actually, not only that, but I thought I would be really stressed and I am not. It takes a lot to get me stressed and I thought college would do it...it hasn't. So I thank God for bringing me to this school. I also thank Him for my easygoing, unstressed nature.
2. I am thankful for the courage God has given me. The courage I have needed to put myself out there and do what I wanted without the fear of what people may think of me. It feels good. :)
3. I am thankful for the friends who have supported me the past few months. Without you I may still be curled up in my bed eating ice cream 24/7.
4. I am thankful for ice cream. It's good stuff.

I can't think of anything else but I think my list will suffice. It is not quite what it was 2 years ago, but right now life is not quite what it was 2 years ago.

Song of the Moment: Need You Know by Lady Antebellum (This song came on the radio yesterday while I was playing cards. It was yet another reminder of the hole that I have.)

Do not let others look down on you because you are young, but set and example for the unbelievers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.
1 Timothy 4:12