Sierra V. Fedorko

I couldn’t have known it then. That I would be in a hospital on Thanksgiving Day 2024 with our 3rd baby in my arms.

That was the fartherest thing from my reality in November 2017 which found me a solid 2+ months past the year mark. It was now official in its own crushing way. We were struggling with infertility.

A combination of the harshness of this season and my desire to stay cozy at home for Thanksgiving had me figuring out how to host the holiday. We had two of our dear friends for dinner that year and even with just 4 people total, it was still cramped around the dinner table in our tiny kitchen. We used a measuring cup to pour out the gravy because we didn’t have anything fancy.

But that Thanksgiving Day swept my heart into something new. So this is what cultivating beauty felt like.

The following May would find us starting our garden for real and truly on a tough Mother’s Day. In fact, 2018 was a terrible year for my life, but a powerful one for my soul. God transformed my whole world within the bounds of my pain, and I’m still amazed by His healing!

I was childless again for Thanksgiving 2018, but how I loved creating a place of warmth, beauty, and belonging, anyway. I can’t really explain how hosting this holiday and learning to tend to beauty changed my life, but God knew how to heal my soul through the season of infertility and He used flowers and goats and Thanksgiving and beauty to draw me to Himself and I began to heal.

I still grieved, but I didn’t live half-an-existence any longer. I was here. Whole. Happy Thanksgiving, indeed. (Even when it wasn’t.)

When November 2019 rolled through, I saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test finally. “I just laughed. And you (God) were just with me. And that was my favorite part.” [From a poem in Hope Gives a Eulogy.]

So there I was sitting in our tiny kitchen at the end of our table for Thanksgiving Dinner with the best secret–our boy, Shasta.

Not even 6 weeks along, but a longing fulfilled.

I can still remember how I felt that Thanksgiving night. It was a wonderful feeling. Magnanimous. 

Thanksgiving Day celebrations continued year-after-year in honest-to-goodness heart-warming fashion. The flowers and foliage increased each year that went by!

Eventually, and I do mean eventually, we would update our gravy bowl to a fancy-smancy thrifted one! In 2021, I would be 25 weeks pregnant with our second child–Heidi. 

Thanksgiving Day remained a powerful benchmark every year.

It was no longer my own heart surviving the holidays and more making sure everyone who may feel out-of-place had somewhere beautiful to be.

I wanted them to sit at my table and feel belonging. 

And then came Thanksgiving 2024…

Our THIRD child, Sylvia,  was due the week prior to Thanksgiving, but I still called her my “Thanksgiving baby.” We kept plans for hosting Thanksgiving Day in motion. Why not? We had been doing it for years at this point and it wasn’t that hard. All our guests were laid back. We were laid back. And I wasn’t missing my favorite holiday!

Of course, our Sylvie would go a week “overdue” and very early Wednesday morning, the day before Thanksgiving, I would give birth to our sunshine-girl. It was peace and quiet. It was joy. Sylvia really did live up to that name “Thanksgiving baby” as we were discharged Thanksgiving Day with some hours to spare before guests arrived for dinner!

My brother and his wife greeted us at our own front door and carried Thanksgiving Day for us. Guests would arrive and join in the carrying. My personalized name cards were set on the table in a train as I’d give them to Heidi who would give them to Ember (my sister-in-law) who would place them at the table while I sat on the couch.

Sylvia slept! The turkey was delicious! I sat on one of those donut-like breast-feeding pillows during the feast because I’d just given birth, ha! It was THE best apple pie and pumpkin pie I’d ever had! Two large slices side-by-side, no shame! Ate much pie in the days to follow! I will gladly eat large slices of pie this year in the name of remembrance & celebration! 

Well, anyway, here we are in 2025 and Sylvia’s 1st birthday falls on actual Thanksgiving Day. Her birthday won’t always be on Thanksgiving Day, but every now and then it will fall on the actual day. I find this poetic in ways I can hardly express. It adds a layer of extra “work” to this holiday, but even that is poetic in its own way as the weight I used to carry around Thanksgiving was grief and now it’s birthday party plans.

The point of sharing all this with you is that God works the most incredible details into our story timelines. 

God could have written this Thanksgiving story in a thousand different ways and they would all be good and I’d be sitting here trying to weave the words together to show you what I mean, but I can only tell the story I’ve been given. And this is what it is and isn’t it something? All glory to the Lord. And I mean that from my soul. 

Very likely Thanksgiving Day will crowd with tough things again, this is life in a broken world! But I’ve seen what God can do. I have lived and known it. I have experienced it with my heart, mind, and soul!

So I know when Thanksgiving lands heavy again, I will cast my burden on the Lord and I will know the weight of blessing both in His Presence and by His good & glory-filled work in my life.

I will tell another story. And it will be like this one…full of God’s power and Presence and intricate details—personal to me & an exposure of His undeniable glory.

For however Thanksgiving Day looks for you just keep looking to the Lord. God writes the most beautiful stories and works timelines we can’t possibly grasp in full this side of heaven.

We will catch a glimpse every now and again of the Lord’s work and wonder, but one day we will know so, so much deeper His loving hand in our stories earthside.

For now I’m in awe that this story I shared here is only a mere glimpse of everything the Lord is weaving together. Can you even believe that? Such a story of splendor and still only a glimpse!

Happy Thanksgiving.❤️

(Even when it’s not.)