I am overwhelmed to tears with gratitude this morning. I appreciate every little comfort, freedom, and enjoyment I am blessed with. I was not always like this, but there was a time when almost all of these things were taken from me.
It was in that time of my life that I learned to be grateful for EVERYTHING, including that very hard time in my life. It was an integral part of creating the much better "chapter 2" of my life. I don't think even my children who have known me their whole lives quite yet understand the positive changes of heart that have occurred in me over the past few years.
In all my years on this earth, I never knew what I read this morning about the origins of Thanksgiving. I just thought turkeys, corn, native folks and pilgrims coming together was a great story. I never realized Thanksgiving was institutionalized in this country by Abraham Lincoln decades later.
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As I read the speech Abe gave about it, I was touched by one part in particular. In trying to unite a country torn by civil war over that one horrible issue, He spoke about uniting the country, but especially being grateful for all the good things we all enjoy. Here's the part that really stood out for me:
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"Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, 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."
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SOOO, that's part of what Abe said. The day of Thanksgiving was an INVITATION not just to have a thankful attitude in general, but to acknowledge thankfulness to God, our Father. In Abe's words, "No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things."
So today I am grateful TO GOD, OUR FATHER for the wonderful people in my life, the physical comforts, relationships, and experiences both enjoyable and not so enjoyable. They're ALL GOOD experiences when perceived through my perspectacles.
I'm so overwhelmingly grateful for the freedom to choose almost anything I want, while letting the consequences instruct me. May we all understand this relationship of the source of all our blessings. Thank you to my Heavenly Parents.
That's the end of my gratitude rant, but for those who want to read all of what Abe wrote, I've included it below. Enjoy your Thanksgiving Day:
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By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The year that is drawing toward 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 can not 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 theater of military conflict, while that theater 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 plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax 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 battlefield, 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 3rd day of October, A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.