“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

I sat next to a dying man on Thanksgiving evening five years ago. He was present mentally, his mind sharp. But his body was barely alive – his heart struggling to beat against an over-sized tumor. In that moment the fringe between Heaven and Earth was transparent. It was a holy moment as I watched a man hover on the edge of eternity. That man was my father.

Such moments in life are rare. It is the only time I’ve ever spoken with one so close to the presence of God. It is no coincidence that it all happened on a day that we are called to give thanks. And I feared it at first. I knew his time had come and I did not want this day to be marked by such sad memories forever. But I learned in those hours, huddled near his shrunken form, that the hardest moments in life are often the ones that call us into worship.

He made a request in the midst of his final goodbyes that forever changed the way I view Thanksgiving. He asked us to sing his favorite worship song. With quivering voices we lifted the words heavenward, eyes closed, smiling at the image of my father in his younger days stomping and clapping his hands to music:

Some bright morning when this life is over
I’ll fly away
To that home on God’s celestial shore
I’ll fly away
I’ll fly away oh glory I’ll fly away (in the morning)
When I die hallelujah by and by I’ll fly away

By dawn the next morning my father had flown away. And now, each year I stop and give thanks to the God who gives and takes away. I give thanks to the God who calls me to walk through heartbreaking moments. I give thanks every year on Thanksgiving that God gave me a father who I often struggled to love. And I give thanks that one day I will see him again and we will pick up right where we left off, in worship to the God who is worthy of thanking – for all the good and the bad we endure.

Ariel Allison writes, reads, and lives in a small Texas town with her husband and three young sons. She is the co-author of Daddy Do You Love Me: a Daughter’s Journey of Faith and Restoration (New Leaf Press, 2006). Her days are filled with toothless grins, muddy hands, and a never ending stream of words that try to find their way to her laptop. She ponders life as a mother of all boys at www.themoabclub.blogspot.com and her thoughts as a redeemed dreamer at www.arielallison.blogspot.com. She and her husband are expecting their fourth son in December.