Thankful despite challenges
Rotarians shared what they are thankful for the day before Thanksgiving and Rev. Tim Benjamin from Wayne Street Methodist Church has much to be thankful for.
2020 has been a difficult year for everyone, with the coronavirus pandemic flipping everyone’s lives upside down and the record number of hurricanes that have impacted part of the nation — the pastor is looking forward to New Year’s Eve and celebrating a new year and a thought of rebirth.
“I was looking back over the year and if you remember back to January when we were freaking out about wildfires burning up California and Australia, we had a record year for tropical storms, the most powerful storms and the most storms recorded which has led to record flooding, Phoenix set a heat record of 144 days out of this year, riots and the looting, we had an election this year and those are always terrible, it doesn’t matter how they turn out,” he said. “And I haven’t even mentioned this
little pandemic going on that has shut down a lot of things.”
From a local standpoint, Benjamin shared that entering the year, he wanted to set attendance records at Wayne Street UMC instead, there was nearly zero attendance during Easter service.
“In my career, I never saw that before,” he added. “Our average attendance is down about a hundred for Sunday, so things at Wayne Street certainly could be going better.”
To say 2020 has been a tough year is an understatement for Benjamin. He recounted when he had a pain in the side of his head shortly after Easter stemming from a bad tooth, which eventually led to a root canal. Two weeks later, he was at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center with a bowel obstruction. He remembered having a conver
sation with his doctor on whether or not he was going to live.
“The doctor’s response was, ‘Not if I could help it,’” he added. “Not the answer I wanted.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, Benjamin shared that he cut the end of his finger off with a hedge trimmer, needing stitches and for the first time in 45 years, he will not be spending time with family for Thanksgiving because of his parents’ health.
“Add in all that here at Wayne Street where I have officiated over 37 funerals here and I’ve got one more on Saturday, which will make 38, and we are not even in the last month of the year yet.”
Looking back at it all, Benjamin said one thing he has learned is that Thanksgiving is not a response, a feeling or something that people just do.
“Thanksgiving is how we live. It is what we are,” he added. “Are we thankful or are we not?”
Benjamin noted examples of that are seen throughout the Bible, particularly in the New Testament when Apostle Paul, who Benjamin said was a champion of destroying the Church and persecuting Christian until his conversion and becoming a follower of Jesus Christ. Benjamin cited Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.”
“That’s a pretty straightforward thing to say, but you have to realize when Paul wrote it, he was chained to a wall in prison,” Benjamin noted. “I think that most of us would agree that being in jail is not something that we would be like, ‘ Oh man this is wonderful, I am so happy I am here.’ What Paul had decided was thankful wasn’t something he was going to do, thankful was something he was.
“That’s what I have been telling people for a couple of months now and that’s what my Thanksgiving mes
sage is going to be about. Thanksgiving is a choice and not a response.”
Benjamin said in light of this year, ultimately, he has a choice to make — he can be frustrated and negative about 2020 or he can search for what to be thankful for despite his hardships.
“Sometimes we have to persevere because if we are going to wait until we feel it, we’re going to be sitting in our favorite chair on Thanksgiving afternoon watching the [Detroit] Lions lose the football game not feeling it at all,” Benjamin explained. “My encouragement to everyone I have spoken to and will speak to later on this weekend is, don’t wait until you feel it … we have to decide to be thankful.
“Life isn’t always going to be sunshine and roses. This world could be a mean and nasty place if we let it and we need to persevere and choose if we are going to be thankful or not.”