Looking forward to Thanksgiving

It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defending us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad and vouchsafing [a word that we don’t use much meaning graciously granting] to us in His mercy many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 20th day of October, A.D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

It’s not just Turkey Day!

It is more than a day to have a feast followed by days of turkey sandwiches.

It is not about a full Thursday of football.

It is even more than pies and Cool Whip.

We should be thankful all year long, every day, and every hour; but it is good that one day is set aside.  It is a day that we can look forward to in anticipation.

We do this with Christmas and Easter.  We can celebrate the birth of Christ any time that we desire.  We can celebrate the resurrection in every day and in every breath, but it is good to have a day to look forward to with excitement.

So let us make this Thursday a special day of thanks to God.  Family gatherings are wonderful.  Feasting is fantastic, but let us first remember and praise the God from whom all blessing flow.

Amen!