Thankful and Grateful
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! I am so thankful for YOU and, above all, so thankful for God’s love and blessings to us all.
Carl and I had an early Thanksgiving with his family a couple of weeks ago. And tomorrow my family will be converging in East Texas.
Thanksgiving! THIS IS THE DAY the Lord has made, and I am rejoicing for how unusual it is for us! We will be joining thousands of others at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington TX – watching the Dallas Cowboys play the Washington Commanders.
This is an anomaly for us. Carl won tickets and parking passes for this game, as well as three nights at the Crowne Plaza downtown Dallas.
While it is different for us this year, we still don’t take this day for granted. It is still the day we offer our greatest thanks-giving to our beneficent Almighty God. While I am so grateful for God’s blessings to us and our families and friends, I cannot close my eyes to the many Americans who are hurting today.
Though most of us have what we need, millions are either without work or struggling to make ends meet and provide for their families. Even as we thank God for His blessings, we continually pray for God to meet their needs while also seeking ways we can help.
It is an eye-opener to recall that our Thanksgiving traditions were not born in times of great ease and opulence, but in moments of hardship and trial. The pilgrims suffered drought, disease, and death. And yet they paused to give thanks to God for a bountiful harvest.
President Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official national holiday in 1863, when our country was in the throes of the Civil War. There were no darker times in our nation’s history. Yet, Lincoln called on Americans to thank God for the blessings He had bestowed upon them.
Gratitude has little to do with our circumstances and everything to do with our hearts. The Apostle Paul told the Philippian Christians, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:11-13).
What is the secret of being content in any and every situation? It is seeing everything – even the disappointing things — as a blessing and a gift – even when it doesn’t feel like it.
Most of us have our basic needs met, with some left over. We enjoy so much food, technology, leisure, and entertainment. So, thinking about those early pilgrims is good for us. They had all lost loved ones to disease and malnutrition. They were thankful to have survived. Few of us think to thank God because we have not suffered as many who live in unbearable conditions.
Of course, we should be happy to live in a nation where we don’t have to worry about mere survival. But if we don’t cultivate a spirit of gratitude, then even the most delightful blessings can cause us to forget to be thankful. May this Thanksgiving be a reminder of just how blessed we are – not just one Thursday in November, but EVERY day!
Go Cowboys!