Life is crazy.

I think we can all admit that our lives get insanely busy and it’s so hard just to slow down and notice things.

One of my favorite parts about fall is watching the leaves change.

One of my least favorite things about South Alabama is the vast amount of evergreens that prevent that from being possible.

I can’t count the times I’ve complained about not getting the view I want.

Yesterday I drove to my house, and realized I’d been complaining over nothing.

The entire street is full of leaves that glow amber and honey and caramel and I never once slowed down (literally) to notice their beauty.

That’s why we need Holidays—that’s why we need Thanksgiving.

Christmas is impossible to ignore, especially when the radio stations play Christmas carols non-stop and the neighbors put up their goodness awful blow up Santa.

But Thanksgiving so often gets lost in the mix.

Let’s face it—we’ve even let Christmas and “Black Friday” take over our day to be still and thankful.

No wonder our lives seem hectic.

We’re too busy shopping for a day a month away or for our own closets to stop and take a nap after we enjoy some turkey.

Thanksgiving means so much to so many, and it means SO much to me.

Why?

It’s not the food.

It’s not the weather (because let’s face it—that can never be counted on in Alabama).

It’s not even the days off from school.

It’s home.

And I don’t mean simply being able to lay in my bed all day (although I do that quite a bit).

For a kid who’s lived in about 10 different towns (I’ve stopped trying to get a correct count), thinking of a town as a “home” is difficult, it always has been.

The only building that comes close to what everyone else describes as home is my Grandparents’ house—the only one that has remained a constant throughout my otherwise ever changing life.

Nostalgia smacks me in the face the second I walk through the door, and I’m always greeted with a hug.

(Don’t worry- my mom hugs me when I show up at her house too, but the memories are much more recent.)

I’ve found a better place to lay my claim on a “home”.

People.

I invest my heart and my memories in human beings—my friends, my church family, my classmates.

Most of all, I find my home in my family.

Wherever my family is, I am home -- that’s what I love about Thanksgiving.

This year, home was exactly what I needed.

It’s been a rough few months, and the whole time I longed to be home.

I was terrified too, though.

I was so scared that because two such important people had left us, home wouldn’t be as comforting.

How blessed I was to find that, though a huge room of memories and love were missing, they weren’t gone.

I think that perhaps love is like matter -- it can’t be destroyed, it only changes form.

Two very pivotal pieces of my family have gone to our forever Home, and I can’t wait for the day we get to have our Thanksgiving feast there with Jesus.

But until then, I urge you to remember Thanksgiving.

I beg you to go to your “home” and to breathe deeply the love that exists there.

And this year, let’s try to make every day Thanksgiving, because beauty is all around us.