The season of Thanksgiving was drawing near, its festival pressing gently against the corners of our lives. It was an early winter afternoon in Manhattan, the kind of day when the wind cuts sharply through the streets and the sky hangs heavy with cold. I was just about to step out of my car when a voice stirred within me—quiet yet unmistakable: “Would you give me your coat today?”

Startled, I looked out the window and whispered back, “My coat? Do you know how bitterly cold it is out there?” Almost without thinking, I resisted. But the voice returned, more insistent:”There is someone waiting for your coat. Will you give it to them?”

I wrestled with the thought. Surely this was the Spirit speaking, yet my heart bristled with excuses. “Why today, of all days? Couldn’t I wait until tomorrow? If I give it now, what will happen to me? If I fall ill, wouldn’t that hinder God’s glory instead?” My words were little more than complaints, but the voice pressed on, urgent and tender.

The wind clawed at my coat as I walked through the canyon of skyscrapers. People hurried past, their footsteps echoing against the pavement. Secretly, I hoped no one would appear. “See? No one needs my coat,” I muttered, quickening my pace. Yet across the street, I noticed a woman standing alone. “Is it her?” I asked the Spirit. The answer was clear: “No.”

I thought perhaps I was being tested. My mind wandered to the three coats I owned: the down coat I wore daily, a secondhand cashmere coat bought for fifteen dollars at a bazaar, and another gifted by an elderly deaconess who had said, “Wear it if you like, or give it to someone else.” That day, I happened to be wearing her gift—a coat more comfortable and elegant than my usual one.

At a crowded intersection, my eyes were suddenly drawn to a woman standing by a building corner. A conviction pierced me: “She is the one.”

I approached her. She was a homeless woman, her height and build uncannily similar to mine. She wore only a thin blue jacket, her face pale and trembling from the cold. Looking into her eyes, I said softly, “You must be freezing. May I give you my coat?”

Her face, stiff as stone, suddenly broke into a smile—bright and innocent, like a child waking from sleep. “Really? But what about you? You’ll be cold too,” she said, disbelief flickering in her gaze.

“I have two more coats at home,” I assured her. “God told me to give this one to you.”

I emptied the pockets, then gently draped the coat over her shoulders, fastening the buttons. In that moment, I felt the love of God—the One who always fastens the buttons of my life and cares for me. The coat suited her perfectly.

“God loves you. No—He loves us,” I said.

We embraced, and in that embrace, I glimpsed the joy of heaven.

As I walked away, leaving her radiant smile behind, I lifted my eyes to the winter sky. My heart longed to fall to the ground in worship. The God who had seemed so distant was suddenly near—in my breath, my movements, my thoughts, my ordinary steps. That joy was surely a gift from heaven.

“The great God who rules the vast universe has come to me, a mere speck, speaking to me, caring for me, clothing even the broken soul shivering in the cold, and dwelling with us. Oh, that love! Thank You! Thank You! I believe! You are alive, eternal, and worthy of our worship.”

Thanksgiving welled up like a spring.

“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us… We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:12–19)

Thanksgiving, I realized, is not a calculation of blessings received. It is a beginning, an act, a relationship.

And faintly, from the barren branches above, the winter birds sang—echoing at the window of my soul.