Funny Meme’s aside, Thanksgiving is a very important holiday. Sure, Halloween is fun and Christmas is exciting, but Thanksgiving is imperative to keep our hearts in check.
Both Halloween and Christmas have an underlying ‘gimme-gimme’ theme in them. We get candy and we get presents, which makes Thanksgiving easy to forget. At the heart of Thanksgiving is humility and God. Neither of which are very welcomed in our culture now a days.
Thanksgiving as a national holiday is usually attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but come to find out this national holiday received much of it’s lobbying and editorial support from a woman’s editor, Sarah Josepha Hale.
Hale often wrote editorials and articles about the holiday and she lobbied state and federal officials to pass legislation creating a fixed, national day of thanks on the last Thursday of November. She believed that such a unifying measure could help ease growing tensions and divisions between the northern and southern parts of the country, at the time of the Civil War.
Whether Lincoln was already predisposed to issue such a proclamation before receiving Hale’s letter remains unclear. What is certain is that within a week, Secretary of State, William Seward had drafted Lincoln’s official proclamation fixing the national observation of Thanksgiving on the final Thursday in November, a move the two men hoped would help “heal the wounds of the nation.”
Our Nation is almost as divided as it was during the Civil War, and we need to draw back to God to see where all blessing come from. So, take the time to read through Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Address and pray for our nation. 'Give Thanks to the Lord for his is good. His love endures forever. ' Lamentations 3:17-21
Read through Lincoln's Thanksgiving announcement, and let's remember all the good God has given us, even in the bizarre year we've experienced.
Abraham Lincoln October 3rd 1863
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 unequalled 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 defence, 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. (emphasis added)
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