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It’s November. My house is slowly being purged of Halloween decor and my thoughts are turning toward Thanksgiving. The weather feels like it is going to make the break for Winter any day. It’s crisper, colder, damper than before. The early dark makes me pine for fires long before they are due. And the sunshine, that is so abundant at the moment, does not bring warmth. Instead, it casts thin fingerling shadows along the sidewalk that I dodge to stay out of the chill.

November is apples and pies, family and friends. Gold, orange, red. Big roasted turkeys, maple leaves strewn on the lawn. November is that slow, melodic movement toward the holidays. I am not there yet, but I realize I cannot help but edge closer toward glitter and tinsel and nativities and snow. I feel it in traces of excitement everywhere I turn. There are small swells of holiday spirit. . . small glimpses of a nearby future. The air is swirling at my feet, pushing me forward toward December.

But I am not there yet. It’s only November and my thoughts are also turning to the themes we associate with this month. Gratitude. Thankfulness. Contentment. Abundance. I am finding that I am overwhelmed by the prospect of writing all that I am thinking. All that I am feeling. This is the preacher’s constant lament, “What to say on Sunday?” And in a month like November it is tempting to preach a half dozen sermons on one Sunday. My dilemma is not resolved by the fact I blog nearly every day—as that same rush toward December seems to suggest I rush the writing as well. I could preach a month of Sundays on Abundance alone… and still it would not be enough to capture what I know to be true; we are so blessed. So very, very blessed.

I am taking this month slowly. It is not yet December. Separating the strands, trying hard not to say it all at once. There is time enough to tell you my feelings about November. Gratitude. Thankfulness. Contentment. Abundance.

There is time enough to tell you that we are so very blessed.