A Thankful Heart in a Thankless Time
There’s a rumor going around that Thanksgiving is on it’s way out. It’s
getting squeezed in a mercenary vice grip between commercially successful
Halloween and shopping frenzy Christmas.
In commercial terms, Thanksgiving just doesn’t have enough bang for the
buck, unless you are selling turkeys. This is, unfortunately, the way of the
world.
The movement to lose Thanksgiving began with the encroachment of
Christmas into Thanksgiving territory. Christmas music is on the radio two
weeks before Thanksgiving. This year, stores announced with a flurry that they
would, in fact, be open Thanksgiving day.
-Why wait for Black Friday when you
can tear yourself away from the dinner table and zoom to catch the latest
bargains?
Taking time to give thanks is important, however. We at Faith beg you to
hold fast to a full day celebration of THANKS…Thanksgiving is supposed to be a
day of gratitude to God. Please help your children understand this.
Here are some tips to keep the “Thanks” in Thanksgiving:
___Explore the history of Thanksgiving with your children. Tell them about
the Pilgrims’ first celebration of thanks. Read the historic quote by Gov
William Bradford in the original Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1623:
“All ye Pilgrims with your wives and little ones, do gather at the Meeting
House, on the hill there to listen to the pastor and render Thanksgiving to the
Almighty God for all His blessings.”
___ Give the children 5 hard kernels of corn, explaining that this was
often all the Pilgrims were given in their daily rations. Use the kernels to
count your blessings.
___ Display a “Thanksgiving Basket” with cards to fill out with what you
are thankful for, encouraging the children to write things down. Read these
notes at Thanksgiving.
____Think of ways to give a secret “Thank you” to others.
____Invite a lonely person to eat with you.
____Keep “Thankful” Bible Verses in a basket and pull one out to read each
day.
____Go around the table and have each person tell what they are thankful
for.
The Bible says: “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.” - 1
Chronicles 16:34
- Don’t let go of Thanksgiving. Take this time to teach your child an
attitude of gratitude -- for others AND God!
Here are some bits of history you might want to share this Thanksgiving:
In
October 1789, President George Washington proclaimed the first national
Thanksgiving to be Thursday, the 26th of November that year. The proclamation
declared, in part, that Americans should observe a day of “public thanksgiving
and prayer” devoted to “the service of that great and glorious Being who is the
beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”
Washington
was very dedicated to showing thanks — to Divine Providence, to his wife Martha,
to his troops, to the Continental Congress, and to his fellow countrymen. There
are many very positive character traits that we assign to him — unflinching
integrity, bold and decisive leadership, undying loyalty, and incredible
humility – and perhaps chief among them was his reputation for thanking others
and giving credit to those who deserved credit.
Read and/or print the entire proclamation HERE.
After George Washington authorized the first Thanksgiving Day in 1789,
74 years passed without another such day of thanks. Then, Abraham Lincoln
established the holiday as an annual event in America.
Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation should be shared with your
children:
“It is the duty of nations as well as of men to owe their dependence upon
the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble
sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and
pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scripture and
proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the
Lord.
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have
been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in
numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which
preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we
have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these
blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
Intoxicated with unbroken success we have become too self-sufficient to feel the
necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that
made us.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently,
and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole
American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the
United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in
foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day
of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the
heavens.”
-- Abraham Lincoln
President Lincoln authorized our annual Thanksgiving Day in 1863 - in the
midst of the Civil War.
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