Putting the Thanks Back in Thanksgiving

I have a little pet peeve that we here in America mostly go right from Halloween to Christmas and forget all about Thanksgiving, except that it's a day we stuff our faces silly, watch a football game or two and maybe catch a parade.  Sometimes we even take the whole meaning out of the day and just call it turkey day. 

We forget to be thankful for our heritage as a country, for all our freedoms it gives us and for the men and women who have fought and died for that freedom.   We're surrounded by so much abundance that we lose sight of the tremendous blessings and opportunities we have. 

So I say, let's bring back Thanksgiving! 

1 Thessalonians 5:18 tells us:

"In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

If you ever want to know God's will for your life, this is something that should always be on our list--to be thankful...in everything. That doesn't leave much room for argument, does it?

Why is it so important to God that we have thankful hearts?  Because it makes us see our lives and the whole world in a godly way.  Through eyes of thankfulness we learn to be grateful, to be content, to give, to be compassionate. 

And from it all we have joy.

We all have so much for which to be thankful.  Even the bad stuff has a silver lining, we just have to see it through eyes of faith. And if we take the time to look, I think we'll find we have more to be thankful for than we thought.

 

So, I hereby resurrect Thanksgiving!  From today until Thanksgiving, I'm going post something I'm thankful for every day and I'd love to hear what you're thankful for, too!

11.19.11 ~ I'm thankful for all the people in my life and the love and grace they show me.  From my family, to friends (that includes you!) to caregivers, and even to strangers that God puts in my life for a brief moment to make me take good, hard look at myself, I am thankful.