Meaning of Thanksgiving

How wonderful that our history reading has coincided so perfectly with Thanksgiving this year.

We have been covering the entire history of the United States starting with the situation in Europe before Columbus set forth on his famous journey. We covered this last Thursday the departure of the Pilgrims from Holland to their settling in Plymouth. I learned a lot of new things I didn't know (normal happenstance when learning along with them). For example, I thought that the Pilgrums were the first English settlers in the New World. Actually, there had been two other settlement sites that had done exremely poorly and by comparison the Pilgrums did very well.

The personal reward came when after making comparisons between the celebration of the harvest when the Pilgums gave thanks to God for their plenty and how much we as a family were able to harvest from off our own land (now that the gathering time is over for us as it was for the settlers) for which we are grateful, Jacob said "Oh! I get it. That's why we call it Thanks - giving day. Because we are giving thanks." Ding-ding. Happy little dance in my head. We then spoke about all the blessings God has given us- especially the world with all it's bounty to supply our bodies- both on the inside and out.

Now to incorporate that sense of gratitude on Thanksgiving day itself when it will be so busy with family, cooking, eating, napping, cleaning, eating some more.... :)

We hope you have a fabulous Thanksgiving Day!!!