It’s Thanksgiving week. I thought about doing a series of Thankful posts, but my heart just wasn’t in it this week.

It’s not that I’m not thankful for anything. I try to make sure I’m always thankful, in every season. There’s always something. But, this season is a particularly weary one. The fatigue is outweighing my grateful heart right now. Literally, I am worn out by too much doing and not enough rest. It’s also a season where I’m surrounded by emotionally hard and heavy things.

I have loved ones dealing with death and illness and depression. Those already hard circumstances are often further complicated by this “joyful” season. The situation with Big L is still uncertain. The events of Ferguson have not left my mind, nor the death of Tamir Rice, barely older than my own kids. And, I can’t help by reflect on where we were 4 years ago– Donetsk, Ukraine, meeting Reed and Lena for the first time. This is a happy memory, but it’s only a memory. Now, Donetsk is at the center of war. Constant shellings, lack of resources, banks closing, and starvation are now the reality there.

My gratitude for a warm, safe home, for my health and my family’s health, for our security, is ever present, but it’s surrounded by prayers for the world around us. Prayers for peace, here in the US and in Ukraine and around the world.

If you too are feeling more tired and weary than thankful and joyful this Thanksgiving season, you’re not alone. And, I think it’s okay. It’s okay to be tired and weary sometimes. It’s okay to feel heaviness of the world around us.

However, one thing I am thankful for this season is my belief that it’s only temporary. That the struggles of this world are only for a moment in time. Because… Christmas is coming. Because Jesus was born. Because he came to heal and his work is not done. Because, as Crowder sings “Earth has no sorrow that heaven can’t heal.”

I’d love to hear where you’re at. Totally feeling thankful this season or just trudging through it with me?