First Baptist Church of Herndon

When to be Thankful

Linda Soller | Nov 13, 2017

Sometimes with all that is going on in the world around us it can be hard to know when to be thankful. I think that is one reason why I value Thanksgiving Day so much.  A person at the counter in my yoga studio stated they didn’t care much for Thanksgiving since it’s all about food. I can’t deny that food is important on Thanksgiving, but I never believed it to be the reason for the holiday. Part of me wanted to say something, the other part just felt bad for the person.  The first Thanksgiving was to celebrate this new land of promise and how blessed the Pilgrims felt to be alive. They came ill-prepared to survive, but full of faith. The food was a mechanism to celebrate, not the reason for the celebration.

Over time our young country celebrated rather randomly, each state doing their own thing. For years citizens suggested there was a need to come together and appreciate all we had as a country. A country in difficulty, struggling with its own identity, questioning whose freedoms were to be valued above others. On October 3, 1863, 74 years after President Washington had declared a day of Thanksgiving, President Lincoln issued a proclamation (thought written by Secretary of State William Seward) which set aside the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving. Parts of that proclamation are as appropriate today as they were then. “… as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”

Too often, we humans think our personal problems are the biggest, the worst, the only ones which count. Yet the words written in 1863 could be about today. Life has always been and will no doubt continue to be a struggle. There will always be room for kindness, caring and forgiving. We cannot make all the world’s problems disappear, but we can learn to recognize when to be thankful.  

Have a great week!  :o) Linda

Please pray for those left behind after the massacre at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, TX. Pray they can be thankful for the time they had with the friends and family members they lost, and not let anger take their faith. Pray for their comfort, and healing. Pray.