Thanksgiving Again

Another year and another opportunity to assess all that we have to be grateful for. Friends and family, home and freedom, and work and health - all of these are celebrated this day throughout America. We have been a fortunate and blessed people.

As you well know from your history classes, the original Thanksgiving took place with the surviving Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Indians in 1621. That event subsequently sparked celebrations in other colonies and states. It was later declared a national observance in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War was taking place at the time, and Lincoln used the opportunity to issue a proclamation asking all Americans to beseech God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt finally proclaimed it a national holiday to be held the fourth Thursday of every November.

Lincoln was dealing with the Civil War; Franklin with the Great Depression. Yet they both felt national thanksgiving was in order. That illustrates the opportunity, and perhaps the responsibility and necessity, of pausing to review our blessings - to show gratefulness to God for all He has blessed our nation with.

How are you and your family celebrating this year? Are you going about the same years-long traditions, or are you making new ones? Whatever you are doing, enjoy the day. And celebrate your blessings!