Some days it just doesn’t seem like we have enough, not enough time, not enough energy or support, not enough love. When disappointment runs deep, we cannot help but ask, “Where are you, God?”

If we dare, if we take courage and look beyond our limitations, stepping out into uncertainty, sure of only the One, there we find surprising mystery, there is the grace. At first, maybe a drop, and then a trickle, that leads us to the fountain of mercy and goodness that God intends. For each one of us, God’s plan is different, but we are all caught up in a universal experience of what is means to be human. Thanks be to our Lord Jesus, God knows the human experience intimately. And taught us thanksgiving anyway. “On the night in which we was betrayed, Jesus took bread and gave thanks.” (1 Corinthians 11:23) Amazing. Jesus knew his circumstances were dire, he knew he was headed to suffer and he did so with thanksgiving.

I don’t believe we get to the Great Full Season, until we have passed by the grateful season. We give thanks for everything, no matter how fleeting. No matter what our situation, we bless God and give thanks. Giving thanks helps us to gain new perspective, to see things we had not seen before. The Great Full Season arrives when we are able to let go of what we think we need, and find God in the dark, find God in the autumns of our lives when things are falling away. Let us enter the Great Full Season, placing our full trust in the fullness of glory that lies ahead.