Tuesday, November 19, 2013

November 19 – “Turkeys”

The Thanksgiving season has officially begun around our house.  Now for us that doesn’t mean we got down the Christmas decorations.  That won’t happen until just after Thanksgiving Day.  Chris insists.  Besides that’s when we have help around, and I don’t have to drag it all down from the attic by myself.  No, Thanksgiving season around here means we are getting serious about frying turkeys.

We have two of those big pots and two outdoor propane flame machines.  The kind you can also use to boil crawfish or shrimp or crabs in.  Probably around next Tuesday I’ll be pulling those out of the shed and firing them up about six in the morning, and they will keep on going most, if not all, of the day.  Last year we ended up frying eight or ten of the birds.  Our family gathering usually accounts for two of them.  We give some of the others away, but we also freeze some.  They are great to use all year round for turkey and dumplings or turkey pot pie or turkey/shrimp gumbo or turkey sandwiches.  It ends up being a great use of resources. 

And speaking of resources, that brings us back to the WalMart run.  They had Butterball turkeys for 98 cents a pound.  Anything under a dollar a pound is fair game according to Chris, so I picked up three.  We already have one, so that means we still need to get at least six or eight more.  I would really like to take some to the firehouses if we can this year, but that would mean six turkeys just for them.  Not that they are not worth it, but we’ll just have to check the budget.  And the time schedule.  It takes about an hour for each turkey.  We have the two fryers, so six turkeys means an extra three hours of coming time.  It’s doable.  We’ll see …

The checker at WalMart made a comment about the three I had in my basket.  She said, “Someone must be planning on a really big Thanksgiving.”  I explained about our frying plans and our hope to give some away.  She then got really excited.  She told me all about her church’s plans for feeding the homeless next week.  I let her know that I appreciated their ministry, and then I encouraged her because she was going to church in the first place.  By that time she was beaming.  The words kept bubbling out of her mouth, and her final comment was, “I have to go to church.  I have to have my Lord.  Life wasn’t worth living without it or him.”  When she finally took a breath, I handed over my coupons and thanked her for being so open about her faith.  At that point I noticed the lad in line behind us.  She was smiling broadly as well, and nodded vigorously in agreement, with tears in her eyes.  I wanted to stick around and find out her story, but decided to leave her in the hands of the Jesus-loving checker.  She’ll be fine. 

Psalms 119:24 says, “Your statutes are my delight; they are my counselors.”

Father, thank you for the encouragement that comes just from being kind and talking about your love.  Amen.

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