Remembering there's a glass to give thanks for

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By Jennifer Woodruff Tait 

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. I love the food, I love football, I love crisp autumn days, and it has always been the time when my whole extended family gathers even if they can’t get together at any other time of the year. 

Despite this, I’ve often had a problem with gratitude. A while ago, friends of mine on Facebook were sharing posts naming three things each day they were grateful for and challenging others to do the same. I took up the challenge about four times and promptly forgot about it every time. I will be the first to tell you that I have a great life if you ask me directly, “Do you have a great life?” But I’m a pessimist and a curmudgeon by nature: not the kind of person who offers up thanks for blessings unbidden. It’s not just a case of glass-half-empty. I have trouble remembering there’s a glass at all. 

Which leads me to this quote from Calvin. As a lifelong Wesleyan, I early on developed a Calvin-size chip on my shoulder. If I thought about the founder of the Reformed tradition at all, it was to argue with his thoughts about predestination of the elect. 

Then I went to graduate school where a course on Calvin was required. Imagine my surprise, upon reading the Institutes, to find much of it is interesting and spiritually refreshing. As we’ve been working on issue 120 of Christian History, which focuses quite a bit on Calvin, I’ve become even more sympathetic to this quiet man who just wanted to study and have everyone leave him alone, yet ended up leading a revolution. As a nose-to-the-grindstone introvert myself, I can relate. And the story of his courtship and marriage is the stuff first of situation comedy, then of tragedy. 

Cornocopia made of bread, photographed by U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Jamar X Perry, via Wikimedia Commons

 

I was sharing all of this with my husband when he said, “You know what, you’re a lot like Calvin.” The man (Calvin, not my husband) does seem to have been a duty-bound pessimist much of the time. But hidden in his works are sentences like today’s gem, where he revels in God’s blessings and like this one, so appropriate for this day of thanks: “If we ponder to what end God created food, we shall find that he meant not only to provide for necessity but for delight and good cheer.” 

So this Thanksgiving I’m thankful for my friends and my family and all of you and all of the food that God has provided for delight and good cheer. I’m even thankful for John Calvin. I’d like to imagine him sitting next to me as I pass the homemade mashed potatoes, and digging right in. 

Jennifer Woodruff Tait is Managing Editor of Christian History magazine. Find lots more about Calvin in issue #120 on the Reluctant Reformer, available to preorder here.

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