I’m guessing you know what I mean when I say the Thanksgiving holiday has a unique sense about it. Regardless of autumn’s shrouded frigidity, Thanksgiving remains bright and warm, as if the sun leaned closer to the earth for just this one day.

I say this knowing full well that family gatherings at Thanksgiving can be a mishmash of dynamics. I also know from casual reading that division in families from this or that issue is at an all-time high. For some, family get-togethers are more taxing than enjoyable. Still, I meant what I said. Thanksgiving has a unique sense about it. And it’s good.

It’s good, not because the Thanksgiving feast is the meal all other meals only wish they could be. For the pessimists among us, it’s not good because it only happens once a year. Thanksgiving is as it is because of its point: no matter where we’ve come from, where we’re going, where we are right now, what we’re experiencing, or who we’re with, we can be thankful. Thanksgiving’s point is gratitude.

Relative to families, someone once said genuine gratitude is only possible when the memories stored in the heart conquer those in the mind. I don’t know who said it. And yes, I suppose the saying is somewhat Hallmark card-like. Still, I’m fond of the thought, even if only for how I prefer to interpret it, which, as you might expect, is through the Christian lens.

Admittedly, the human heart and mind are both sin-stained in every way. And yet, Christians know something beyond this fact, especially when it comes to the Holy Spirit’s work in us through the Gospel for faith. We understand what Ezekiel meant when he spoke for God, saying, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26). We know what Jeremiah meant when he shared the similar promise, “I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart” (Jeremiah 24:7). We know what Saint Paul meant when he insisted, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Paul’s words in Romans 5:5 are not lost on us, either. We know what he meant when he wrote, “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Filtering the adage through these biblical truths, I suppose I like it because it implies that genuine gratitude is out of reach to mental calculation. In other words, as humans, we remember things. Those things shape and reshape us. Remembering how people have treated us—what they’ve done to help or hurt us, whether they’ve behaved as friends or foes—these become the variables we ponder in the calculations of relationship mathematics. And like any equation, sometimes the resulting product is positive. Sometimes, it’s in the negative.

Through the lens created by the Bible texts I shared, the phrase “memories stored in the heart” seems to hint at a different sort of math, an involuntary, grace-filled action uninhibited by human sensibility. It sees things through the Gospel. It understands annoying family members more so as family than annoying, and it’s thankful for them. It knows the time required to prepare a massive meal is exhausting, and yet it’s grateful for the opportunity to serve the ones it loves who’ll be gathering at the table to eat it. Some of those people haven’t been all that nice in the past. Still, it knows that kindness will always be sweeter than malice. It stands on its tiptoes, ready to reconcile. It’s hopeful for it to happen and gives thanks when it discovers itself stumbling into uncomfortable moments that are all but begging for it to be enacted.

In short, the memories of a Christian heart are the memories of Christ. The Holy Spirit puts them there. They are the remembrances that Christ, even when we were utterly unlovable, loved us to the end (John 13:1). They remember that even while we were still sinners, He gave Himself over entirely into Death’s perpetual night (Romans 5:8). They retain the incredibly crucial sense that we are just as needful of Christ’s merciful love as the screwed-up people sitting beside us at the Thanksgiving Day table, and with that, we belong together.

These Christian heart memories stir genuine gratitude, even when gratitude seems nonsensical and maybe even a bit foolish.

My prayer for you this Thanksgiving is two-fold. First, I hope you’ll begin your Thanksgiving Day by going to worship. There’s no better way to be equipped with Godly gratitude than by receiving Christ’s gift of forgiveness through the administration of His Word, both in its verbal and visible forms. Here at Our Savior, the service begins at 10:00 a.m. I hope to see you.

Second, I hope the memories stored in your Christian heart will conquer those in your mortal mind, and as a result, your Thanksgiving Day celebration with family will indeed be brighter and warmer, as if the sun leaned closer to wherever you are standing even if only for this one day.