THANKSGIVING! AN "AMERICAN" HOLIDAY!

Hopefully we kneel in thankfulness -

not in protest of our country and its heritage.

May we consider the needs of others

on this special day. A day which brought

different cultures together to form a nation.

A needed break from politics then and now!

Our American Thanksgiving is uniquely our own holiday, set aside by Presidential Proclamation, the day to give thanks to our heavenly Father for His Providential care for us, and for His gracious mercy. It is a day set aside for the Family, acknowledged to be the basic unit of society and culture. The family is the very core of all of our lives, the place where values are set, and relationships are honored, and the seeds of self-government are planted. It is here that the religious faith of the family legacy is upheld or weakened.

On this Thanksgiving Day, families will gather in every city, town and hamlet around the dining table, many decorated with Pilgrim figures on napkins and tablecloths, in an effort to portray a Thanksgiving theme of remembrance of the first Thanksgiving in old Plymouth. Family members will travel far and near to be together, many at grandmother's house, where precious memories will be built and treasured. It is sad that so few of these families really understand the legacy that is theirs to claim.

How many gathered around the tables will know the true story of the First Thanksgiving and the history that led up to it? Without the understanding, how can a family claim the heritage that gave us the greatest nation in all of history? These sturdy Pilgrims paved the way for religious and civil liberty, and sowed the seed of Christian self-government, that would eventually flower into a Christian Constitutional Republic. Their story should be shared for every generation around these tables, and our commitment to know our Christian heritage should inspire us for future study.

"In coming to this country our fathers most certainly contemplated not merely a safe retreat beyond the sea, where they could worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience, but a local government founded on popular choice...their political code, united religion and liberty, morals and law, and it deferred from the wild license which breaks away from these restraints."

–Edward Everett speaking in Plymouth, August 1, 1853