Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays, and I have been saddened to see how we, as a nation, have just let it slip into relative unimportance. The commercial establishments long ago just decided to jump straight from Halloween to Christmas because nobody gave gifts on Thanksgiving, so, why in the world should anybody promote a time when they can't make a buck or two. I'll tell you why...because everyone in this country needs to stop and remember that we live in the "land of the free" for a reason. That, like it or not, we are "one nation under God" and like those brave people who risk all to travel to a new land where they could worship as they pleased and knew it was by the provincial hand of God that they survived and offered up their thanks in the only way they knew how. It was not until 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln declared that our entire nation needed a day to stop and thank God for His hand of blessing on our nation and our people. He did not proclaim a day of "food and football"...he said: "It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon. We have been recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven...But we have forgotten God. We have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens...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." Let us all think about these words...let us all stop and reflect on all of our blessings...and, let us all truly celebrate a day of Thanksgiving!!!!