What Thanksgiving Means to Me

I know there’s a lot of water under the bridge in human history – people mistreating other people, war, sin, ugliness… but the reality of God’s grace is no less spectacular shining in this self-created darkness. We see Him throughout our past reaching out in love and mercy to those who would seek Him. The Bible says that God inhabits the praise of His people. I pray that this Thanksgiving, we praise Him and (just as Lincoln says below) “fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it”. Lord knows we ALL need healing and helping (conservative and liberal, secular and Christian, “red and yellow, black and white”).

This year as I sit at the table before a fragrant meal (amidst unfamiliar smiling faces since we are eating with the family of generous friends), I’ll be praying for my country… my president… my loved ones… my friends… our soldiers, ministers and contractors overseas… those in prison… those who are hurting, hungry and lost… and even for those who would consider themselves my enemies. Let us thank the Lord for this day and pray He will forgive and heal us ALL. Let us pray He will continue to bless us; even though we are ALL sinners and wholly unworthy of His grace.

Besides leaving you with the actual wording of the famous ‘Thanksgiving Proclamation’, I also wanted to leave you with two links that I think are wonderful resources for this topic:

1. Please Convince Me’s Thanksgiving Page

2. Presidential Prayer Team for Kids Thanksgiving Page (this one will change after the holidays, so click it while you can!)

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation
By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they 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 next, 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.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

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