I read this a few days ago and had to "copy" it to share. It's been said many times, by many people - but warrants repeating often. Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on those things we are Blessed with - lots of people throughout history have remembered to do so when they faced horrors I cannot even imagine. This Thanksgiving I am again Blessed with a family I adore, a job I love (filled with MORE people I adore!), my health, the freedoms I am given as an American and many, many more (see 1000 Blessing list currently in progress in past posts). tammy
When our pilgrim forefathers came to this country, what they were up against was far worse than anything we face now. The first year, over half of their band of 110 died. Our pilgrim fathers dug seven times more graves for the dead than they built huts for the living. And yet during that same period is when they decided to carve out a day where they could say, "Thank you, Lord, for all of your benefits." One of their leaders, Edward Winslow, wrote of that first Thanksgiving in the fall of 1621: "And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."
President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving in 1863, in the middle of a terrible civil war. He said the country's blessings were due to the "ever watchful providence of Almighty God... No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy." And he asked for the "Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it."
