King’s Corner: Finding Thanksgiving in the Ordinary
It was early on the Saturday morning before Thanksgiving—the kind of gray, muted morning that makes you wonder if the sun took an early holiday. It had rained more days than not that week, and everything was soaked: the yard, the fields, the road, even the air felt waterlogged. The drizzle that morning was light but persistent, like it didn’t want to be dramatic—just mildly irritating, the weather equivalent of someone tapping a pencil endlessly.
From the kitchen window, I saw the horses standing under their shelter, gazing out with the same expression I imagine I had: Again? Really? Even from across the property, they looked thoroughly tired of November. I might have heard them sigh. I’m not saying they did—but I’m not saying they didn’t.
My Ring camera chimed, and there was Theresida—my neighbor, friend, and the only hairdresser I trust—picking her careful way through the mud and the “obstacles” generously contributed by the wild horses that roam our road. Navigating that entrance is not for amateurs. Theresida has walked it so many times she could probably do it blindfolded… although the horse deposits make that a risky experiment.
She used to come often to visit my dad, Mark King, whom she knew well and admired. Her visits now feel like a thread connecting our past to our present, as though she brings a little bit of him with her whenever she walks up the drive.
This morning she wore her oversized waterproof coat—the one that makes her look like she might be smuggling a camping tent, or possibly a small kayak. She lifted her feet high with every step, trying in vain to keep her boots something near respectable. Mud had other plans.
The moment she pushed open the gate, the dogs burst out like a furry welcoming committee. Tails up, barking wildly, acting as if she were Santa Claus with pockets full of treats. They swarmed around her legs, splashing mud all over the tent-coat, and she scratched their heads without breaking stride. Even across the yard, the horses heard her voice drifting through the damp air and answered with soft nickers, greeting an old friend—which she is.
She came through the side garage door—because anyone who really knows me uses that entrance—and as she stepped inside, shaking droplets from her coat like a retriever coming in from a lake, I handed her a warm mug.
“Coffee?”
“Oh yes,” she said, gripping it like life support. “This morning requires coffee.”
“Talking day or thinking day?” she asked—her usual greeting, though historically speaking, “thinking days” are rare sightings, like bald eagles or people who read the terms and conditions.
Now, Theresida can be quiet… in theory… but those conditions rarely occur in nature. She’s a talker by design: neighbors, coworkers, her Catholic church, her grown son, the grandchildren’s latest escapades—you name it, she has commentary ready, complete with side stories, footnotes, and sound effects.
“Well,” I said, settling into the kitchen chair she calls my personal salon throne, “today probably has to be a thinking day. Thanksgiving is Thursday, and I still need a sermon for tomorrow.”
She set down her coffee, unpacked her professional tools, and gave me a grin. “Think all you want,” she said, “but the thinking is gonna have competition.”
And with that, she launched into her stories—about coworkers, neighbors, a salon misunderstanding, the choir director, and whatever her grandchildren had gotten into that week. As she draped the apron around my neck and began trimming, her words filled the kitchen with the warm, steady liveliness she brings everywhere she goes. Theresida does not merely talk; she narrates life.
At one rare pause, I asked, “Theresida, earlier you said you don’t really think about Thanksgiving deeply. Did you mean that?”
She clipped a section of hair before answering. “Of course I meant it. I say thank you all the time—to customers, in the grocery line. But sit and really think about Thanksgiving?” She shrugged. “Life’s too full. You work, you help the kids, the church wants everything… who has the time?”
“I get it,” I said. “It’s Saturday, and I haven’t been thinking about it either—and I’m the one who has to preach tomorrow.”
She laughed. “See? Even pastors are human.”
Then she told me about a retreat where she’d imagined her “perfect last day”—travel, adventure, the works—only to hear another woman say she would simply sit on her porch at sunrise, pray, greet her children one by one, cook breakfast, watch them play, and knit beside her husband.
“All my big plans,” Theresida said, “felt silly after that.”
The house grew quiet except for the gentle snip of her scissors. The dogs lay nearby, proud of their earlier greeting duties. The horses shifted in their shelter, visible through the misted window. And in that moment—in the middle of a muddy, ordinary Saturday morning before Thanksgiving—I realized this small, unglamorous scene held its own quiet thanksgiving, if I would only notice.
When she finished, she brushed off my neck and stepped back. “There,” she said, “that’s as good as it gets with what you bring me.”
I laughed. “How is it you work so hard, and I still look the same?”
Theresida snapped the apron loose with a flourish. “There’s only one miracle worker,” she said. “And I’m not him.”
And I realized—that was it.
That was the sermon I needed.
There is only one miracle worker.
We are not him.
But He is with us always.
And that alone is enough reason to give thanks.
Jeff Headley is pastor of the Dayton Valley Community Church, and a storyteller who blends humor, honesty, and hope. His weekly column reflects on resilience, grace, and the surprising ways faith shows up in ordinary life.
