Emily Hatesohl

My three-year-old and one-year-old had just thrown F5-level meltdowns for the first fifteen minutes of church (some of it in the pew, some of it in the nursery, some outside … you get the picture). We somehow rallied and stumbled back to our tornado of a pew.

We are now entering the one time of year in our world that is focused on being generous, giving back, and serving our neighbors. Bell ringers at stores, social media posts of friends serving meals at soup kitchens, and mailouts requesting donations during the “season of giving” are everywhere. Good works seem to be very visible this time of year. 

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17).

We’ve all felt the struggle. When you’re sitting in an awkward waiting room, when your kid asks you the same question over and over, when you’re tired at the end of a long day—we struggle to be present. We struggle against the distraction in our pockets, that glowing rectangle that can instantly fix our boredom. I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else. Smartphones are seemingly essential in today’s world, but they also make it so hard to stay focused on the people around us. We are easily pulled away from reality, easily disinterested, and easily tempted to avoid giving someone our full attention.

In college, I attended a Bible study hosted at a pastor’s home. One week, he said our homework was to make a list of our biggest questions about faith, and we’d discuss them and seek answers in Scripture. So the following week, a group of twenty-year-olds bombarded him with all our burning questions. Can you guess which topic was most common?

It was a month or so after our second child was born, and my almost two-year-old decided he wanted to join the rest of the family and stop sleeping too. Fighting bedtime, skipping his nap, waking up at night, you name it. We were all feeling cranky and out of sorts.

“In 2024, I plan to . . .” Fill in the blank. Maybe you’re hoping to exercise more, eat healthier, start a new job, go on a big family trip, spend more time with your spouse, spend less time on your phone, finally finish that house project, read the Bible every day, join the church choir, make a friend, call your parents more, and so on.

We say the word thanks a lot in a day. We thank our spouse for filling up our coffee, we end emails with the word thanks, and we thank people for holding the door for us. As parents, we teach our kids to say thank you when someone gives them a cookie, compliments their new dress, or shares a toy with them. Giving thanks is actually a pretty common occurrence.

“Don’t you see how hard I’m working?”

“I feel like my work goes unappreciated.”

“It seems like no matter what I do, it’s never enough. There’s always one more thing.”

 “What dis?” my son asked, pointing to the ultrasound picture of our baby, due next month.

“Baby brother!” I said, pointing to the picture and pointing to my tummy. Then I dug around in a special wooden box we keep in my son’s room and found his ultrasound picture from two years ago to show him too.

“What dis?” he asked again.

“This is Ben!” I said, pointing from the picture to him, giving him a little tickle for good measure.