For Thanksgiving, I am reposting this from last year.One of the most painful aspects of ministry to the elderly residents of our Christian home is the inevitability of death. And it is on those occasions that my staff often participates in sharing their feelings of loss and their fond memories. I have come to realize that, for my employees, this is a ministry of love. And the ministry is reciprocal; many of the folks we serve have made immeasurable impacts on the lives of those who are serving them.
Over my past fifteen years here, there have been many times when the holidays have been especially hard for us; these seem to be the times when we lose an unusual number of long-time residents. Yesterday was not the first Thanksgiving Day that we lost one of our residents. She had gone out with her daughters for a family Thanksgiving dinner. Late in the afternoon she began to feel nauseous and complained of stomach and back pains. They took her to the emergency room at the hospital where she was diagnosed with flu symptoms and discharged back to our care by early evening. My staff monitored her every thirty minutes through the evening. About 12:45 AM they found her unresponsive and called 911. When I arrived the paramedics had pronounced her "dead on arrival." I called her pastor and the two of us spent the next few hours comforting and praying with her daughter until the funeral home reps arrived to remove her mother.
Our resident pastor keeps very busy conducting about 30-40 funerals a year. One year, he had seven services in one week. That certainly takes an emotional toll on residents and staff alike. These are hard days for us as, typically, the death rate rises significantly following Thankgiving Day and Christmas Day.
As hard as that is, others have experienced far more in terms of loss. In 1636 there was a pastor who buried 5,000 of his parishioners in a single year. That was about fifteen a day and it happened during the Thirty Years War, one of history’s costliest in terms of casualties, epidemics and economic devastation. He endured some of the worst conditions and experiences that life could dish out.
His name was Martin Rinkert and in the middle of that terrible time of incredible loss, he wrote a table grace for his children that has come to be one of our most loved thanksgiving hymns:
Now thank we all our God With hearts and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, In whom His world rejoices;
As hard as that is, others have experienced far more in terms of loss. In 1636 there was a pastor who buried 5,000 of his parishioners in a single year. That was about fifteen a day and it happened during the Thirty Years War, one of history’s costliest in terms of casualties, epidemics and economic devastation. He endured some of the worst conditions and experiences that life could dish out.
His name was Martin Rinkert and in the middle of that terrible time of incredible loss, he wrote a table grace for his children that has come to be one of our most loved thanksgiving hymns:
Now thank we all our God With hearts and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, In whom His world rejoices;
Who from our mothers' arms Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, And still is ours today.
O may this bounteous God Through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts And blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, And guide us when perplexed,
And free us from all ills In this world and the next.
All praise and thanks to God The Father now be given,
The Son, and Him who reigns With them in highest Heaven,
The One eternal God, Whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, And shall be evermore.
One contemporary pastor, Joel Gregory, referring to Martin Rinkert as "The Unlikely Thanker" asked, “If I'd spent the year holding 5,000 funerals for the people I served, could I write a song of thanksgiving for my children?”It is interesting to note that many people who, seemingly, have the least to thank God for are the very ones who thank Him the most.
