In 1985, Scott Macaulay was 24 years old. His parents had just gotten a divorce. The adjustment was hard enough in and of itself, but it became more pronounced as Thanksgiving rolled around. \u201cWhat\u2019s going to happen at Thanksgiving? … I just did not like the thought of being home alone \u2014 or anywhere alone \u2014 on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is not about gifts or fireworks or hoopla. It\u2019s a meal around a table where you give thanks for the blessings you have, and you really can\u2019t do that by yourself and have much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
So Scott found a creative way to fill his home and his life with gratitude. \u201cI decided to put an ad in the local paper: If people thought they would find themselves alone, they could give me a call, and I would make a Thanksgiving dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n
That first year, only a few people showed up. But Macaulay was committed to the thanksgathering . \u201cI\u2019ve held the dinner every year since. Last Thanksgiving, 84 people showed up.\u201d This year (2014) he celebrates his 29th Thanksgiving meal.<\/p>\n
For Macaulay, says writer Dave Isay, \u201cThere\u2019s always room at his table.\u201d [1]<\/p>\n
The Lord longs to gather everyone to His table of thanksgiving, so He sends us out to invite the whole world to come, not for a day, but for an eternity. There is always room at HIS table!
\n \u201cSo his master said, \u2018Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that the house will be full\u2019 \u201d (Luke 14:23, NLT).
\n ________<\/p>\n
1. Adapted from \u201cTies That Bind\u201d by Dave Isay. Also published in Reader\u2019s Digest magazine, November 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1985, Scott Macaulay was 24 years old. His parents had just gotten a divorce. The adjustment was hard enough in and of itself, but it became more pronounced as Thanksgiving rolled around. \u201cWhat\u2019s going to happen at Thanksgiving? … I just did not like the thought of being home alone \u2014 or anywhere alone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3111,96,1256,4839,99,4838,665,2490,104],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}