Growing up there was one part of Thanksgiving that I always hated. My family would gather around the table, food steaming from the center, and have to wait to dig in until after we went around and said what we were thankful for.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have things to be thankful for, it was just that my brain locked up when put on the spot as my mind began to replay the things for which I was not thankful.

“Uh, the mashed potatoes?” I would often try to stammer out. 

This Thanksgiving, many of us will find ourselves in a similar place as a much younger me. We’ll gather around tables as we struggle to think of what there is to be thankful for in the mess of a world that seems to face the unprecedented almost every week. Even just turning on the news is enough to drive up our heart rates like a slice of pecan pie heavy on the sugar.

Many of us will chew on Thanksgiving turkey hoping the the tryptophan-induced slumber will come quickly so that we won’t have to face the broken relationships, violent actions of others, unavoidable feelings of loneliness, or endless stories of darkness that blast from TVs or popup on our phones.

What is there to be thankful for in such a reality?

That’s the question I know many will ask tomorrow and no amount of “well, you’ve got…” will push away the feelings that the world is as burnt as a forgotten casserole amid family drama.

In the face of that, this year I decided to be one of those people, you know, the ones that start listening to Christmas music as soon as it becomes available on the radio. Usually, I am an Advent purist: nothing Christmas before the start of the countdown to the manger. But this year, I needed the joy a little sooner than that.

One Advent favorite is O Holy Night which says: “A thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.” I’ve always liked this lyric during the Advent season because it acknowledges that even in darkness, the hope of light can be found breaking.

Often our stuttered answer to the thankfulness question is due to a loss of hope. If you want to break someone, you take away their hope. It has been true for centuries in almost every war time capture. Why? Because hope keeps us moving, believing in tomorrow, and looking for light on every dark horizon.

Hope is not denial. It is not pretending the world is fine or ignoring the griefs that sit beside us at the table. Hope is the quiet conviction that God is not done. It is the belief that even in a weary world, something new can still break through.

So maybe tomorrow, if your mind locks up when it is your turn to speak, you don’t have to reach for something shiny or impressive. You can simply say, “I am thankful for hope.” Not because everything is fixed, but because God is still stirring joy in tired hearts and still nudging light into places we thought were permanently dim.

A thrill of hope is enough to keep us going. A glimpse of dawn is enough to remind us that darkness does not have the final word.

And sometimes that is the most honest Thanksgiving prayer we can offer.