Thanksgiving Day. Have you wondered about that first Thanksgiving Day? I found it very interesting that 200 years ago, in 1789 George Washington declared November 26th the official day of Thanksgiving. This year, Thanksgiving falls on November 26th. After 1789, the States continued to celebrate on different days.

It was Sarah Hale, an editor of a women's magazine in Boston, who waged a 30 year letter writing campaign to governors and the presidents, urging them to make Thanksgiving Day a national holiday and to pick one day for the celebration. President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a day of National Thanksgiving in 1863. Franklin Roosevelt pushed Thanksgiving into December in 1939 but two years later, it was moved back to the present, fourth Thursday in November.

Thanksgiving really dates back to October 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Many of the pilgrims who had come over on the Mayflower the previous year had died, and the survivors had weathered a severe winter, but their fortunes had changed by the spring and summer, and they had good crop harvests, thanks to the help of a local tribe, the Wampanoags. To celebrate the better times, the Pilgrims declared a holiday so that all might, after a more special manner, rejoice together. The Pilgrims did not forget the hard times, and they had a custom of putting five kernels of corn on each empty plate before a dinner was served. These five kernels were chosen because prior to that first harvest, things were so bad that the daily ration was five kernels of corn per person per day. That custom of the pilgrims is a reminder for us to reflect upon our blessings, which are given to us by a gracious, generous God.

Thanksgiving is a day of reflection on all that America has, our freedom, and our bounty. Every day is a day of thanksgiving and thanks living. I am reminded what the late A W Tozer once wrote about the habit of thanksgiving. He stated that "Thanksgiving will cure a host of injurious evils in our dispositions, self pity, resentment, murmuring and fault finding. All these will wither and die of themselves. For how can they grow inside a heart overflowing with gratitude and praise?" An unknown author wrote these prayerful thoughts, "Lord, we thank you for the privilege of living in a land of opportunity and beauty and plenty. We thank you for a religious heritage and freedom to worship as we may desire. We thank you for houses of worship that point fingers of stone towards heaven. We thank you for friends across the street, throughout the land, and around the world. We thank you for friendly nations on our borders and the ability to help the less fortunate in our own and other lands. We thank you for fertile fields swathed in robes of golden grain, for rolling plains blanketed with herds of lowing cattle, for majestic mountains ribbed with an ooze of steel. We thank you God for strength to work, for minds to plan and hearts to appreciate all good things from heaven." Happy Thanksgiving!

Warm Thoughts from the Little Home on the Prairie Over a Cup of Tea by Dr Luetta G Werner

Published in the Marion Record November 26th, 1998
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Till next time,

Trina