Here we go, another Thanksgiving article penned especially to capture your attention and remind you of all the reasons you have to say a big “thank you” before you chow down on your turkey this season. So, what’s the verdict? What has you feeling that special fourth Thursday feeling?

If you’re anything like me, this year has been full to the brim (just like your bellies will be) and has brought much brain stretching with it. Being thankful is a state of being we know we should be immersed in, yet it seems to lurk just a little outside of our reaching zone. But we reach anyway because, despite where we are or what we feel, there is true substance to the concept of being thankful or grateful for where we are and what we have.

I’ve always been a big advocate for finding the silver linings; a true believer in the concept of rainbows after the storms. But sometimes it’s really hard to stand firm on the elusive concept of something solid rising from the chaos when your world is shaking.

Hebrews 12:27 states “The removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.” The stuff that isn’t eternal is shaken and separated from the stuff that lasts. The security we hold so dear, though fragile, becomes our certain demise when we refuse to release that in the shaking process.

But who likes the shaking process? Who likes their whole world shuffling around underneath their feet? Who wants their priorities reorganized without their say?

Not me.
Not you.

Even the turkey, nice and roasted on your kitchen table, would have had something to say about it. But chaos offers us—which little else can bring to the scene—the inability to stay planted. No matter where you are when your world starts shaking, you start moving, clinging, reaching, and stretching. It is your actions in the moments that follow that determine your growth or roast.

Are you feeling roasted? Shaken? Worn down? The likelihood of your answer being “absolutely” is rather high. It’s a problem in our generation to push ourselves to the limit with little thought of how to clean up the mess that follows.

However, Hebrews hands us some words of comfort, some direction and clear opportunity to settle into a mindset of thankfulness. It begins with the concept that no matter what is swirling and shaking around you, there are absolutes that never move. There are truths that don’t change and directions that won’t be altered.
We have the key, the way to stand in the midst of chaos and uncertainty, and it is to grab on tightly to the things that don’t move.

This season, on the fourth Thursday of November, I’m thankful to know Someone who can’t be shaken.

Olivia Dummer is a student in Blue Springs, Missouri where Jason Huckaby is her pastor. She writes and keeps an inspirational blog hoping to encourage others and share what she’s learned about God.