By Tom Love
Thanksgiving
The times are tough for many people. Unrest seems to be rocking the world. Families are
Fanning Island during one of Randy’s “cruises” separated by miles and around the Thanksgiving table and there may be a vacant seat. This is certainly true of our men and women deployed around the globe. Can we still offer thanks to God even though we are so far apart? I believe we most certainly can. In fact, as children of God, we must do so no matter what.
“Praise the Lord! O give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His steadfast love endures forever!”
Just consider how people of God responded with thanksgiving in the past. The first American Thanksgiving Day was celebrated within sight of the forty graves in the Plymouth cemetery, while fifty-five survivors of the original band of Pilgrim exiles gathered to praise God even after the epidemic and deaths of the first crushing twelve month period.
Despite the separation from loved ones, despite the setbacks, despite the hardships we face, each and every one of us still has plenty in life for which to thank God. We can have a blessed Thanksgiving as we take the time to give thanks and as we take time to remember our loved ones in prayer. We have so much to be thankful for.
“Now thanks we all our God, with heart and hands and voices, who wondrous things has done, in whom the world rejoices.
Who, from our mother’s arms, has blessed us on our way, with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.”