Thanksgiving I

This isn't like Halloween I, the movie, but there will be a sequel. I thought I'd better get in some of my Thanksgiving thoughts before folks start traveling for the holidays.

Something that has been on my heart for several years now is that society has secularized Thanksgiving just as much as Christmas. But Thanksgiving is not a big moneymaker for retailers, so food is the main thing advertised, not toys and gifts. Retail stores haven't taken God out of Thanksgiving and neither has the government. It's any of us who casually speak of how thankful we are for a whole host of things, but fail to specify that we are thankful to God. It's an easy mentality to fall into, similar to crediting the rain to Mother Nature.

A year or two ago, a columnist in The Pilot wrote an article titled something like "Who are you thankful to?" It reminded me again not to be guilty of thanking good luck, lucky stars, or just saying the generic "I'm thankful."

I'm thankful to God, and I couldn't even begin to list all the many reasons here. Of course, I'm thankful for friends and family and what they mean to me, but Thanksgiving Day has a way of getting me to look at the big picture: how every moment of my life has been lovingly guarded and guided (yet not controlled) by my heavenly Father.

I often think of actor Jimmy Stewart in the Civil War movie Shenandoah. When blessing his family's meal he says something to the effect of: "Lord, we thank you for all this food and for our home. You know we raised every bit of it on our own and did all the work ourselves. . ."

I guess any of us lucky enough to still have jobs (or retirement income) feel like we pay for everything ourselves and that we earned all the accumulated material wealth that is ours. But it's a dangerous fallacy to think we've accomplished anything on our own. Just a little reflection might lead us to credit God, giver of all good things. Most of us can look back to a time we had less, our health was not so good, or times were even more uncertain. I hope that even with today's uncertainties, you can honestly say you are thankful to God. . . for whatever!

Look at the Pilgrims for an example. Arriving in a hostile New England winter because of delays, they were cutting wood on Christmas Day, 1620. Shortly afterward, adults began to fall sick, probably from the poor hygiene and nutrition on the Mayflower. There were days that only 2 or 3 adults were healthy enough to continue laboring on their shelters. The ship became more like a hospital ship. By spring, more than half of their original number had died, predominantly adults. The survivors could have returned to England, but persevered in their faith.

I learned just this week that 14 years earlier in 1606, another group of English settlers had attempted to start a colony for the Plymouth Company, near the Kennebec River in Maine. They returned to England in less than a year, finding the hardships too great to bear. And most of us have never heard of them.

But Governor William Bradford of the Pilgrims documented everything we know about the Pilgrims, the hardships they endured and the faith in God that brought them through it to a time of plenty in their second year.

Governor Bradford had words for us, even though not all of us are of English descent.

May not and ought not the children of these fathers say, "Our
fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean and were ready to perish in the wilderness but they cried unto the Lord and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity." Let them therefore praise the Lord.

Governor William Bradford

He's talking about US! Have a Happy Thanksgiving and think of all we have to thank the Lord for!