Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, which is perhaps one of the nicest holiday of the year because its focus should be on gratitude, family togetherness, and faith. However, all too often the focus of the holiday may be placed on less-important things--food, football, and sometimes even strife and complaining.
We need to remember something about how this national holiday began. Many people trace it back to the Pilgrims' first year in the New World. However, the truth may be that it actually began in St. Augustine, Florida, a few decades earlier. Whatever the case, Thanksgiving is a celebration of the blessings God has bestowed upon us.
H.U. Westermayer wrote, "The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have ever been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving." What were these brave people thankful for? I'm sure at least a part of it was the fact that God had guided them safely to the New World where they could enjoy freedom of religion--a liberty that had been denied to them in England.
We still enjoy that liberty and several others for which we should be deeply grateful, and we should show our gratitude by the way we live. President John F. Kennedy said, "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." W. J. Cameron writes, "Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action."
I like what William Jennings Bryan said about Thanksgiving Day: "On Thanksgiving Day we acknowledge our dependence."
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
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