Our Thanksgiving Week Begins

Awww.....beautiful Thanksgiving Week -- the time we really focus on God's multiplied blessings to us. Though it's the mindset we should have all year through, this week we purposely hone in on what's most important to us. I'm in "game-on" mode for all that this week will hold.

But, before I go to that high energy "Martha" mode, I have to pause this morning, in these wee hours and settle into the "Mary" mode to reflect on the beauty of what this upcoming holiday is all about. First of all, I am so grateful that America continues to set apart a day each year for giving thanks. Whew! That's a close one! Aren't we so grateful that the "radicals" that keep trying to remove the values that our country was founded upon -- prayer, Christmas, "In God We Trust" and "The 10 Commandments" and other matters that exclude our Sovereign God, haven't been successful with removing Thanksgiving? And I think it's a double blessing that most of us still believe that Thanksgiving is a day for actually giving thanks to God, not just a time for feeling vaguely thankful while loading up on turkey and pumpkin pie, watching football AND perusing all the Black Friday ads!

May we not forget the heart of Thanksgiving. In fact, it may seem like a cliche, but I believe Thanksgiving should be a part of our DNA where that spirit of gratitude is at the very core of our lives. Just being grateful to wake up in a warm bed. In fact, being grateful we WOKE UP -- considering the alternative. Grateful to be vertical -- not horizontal. And, the list could go into pages for so many other blessings we have.

Thinking about this wonderful holiday, I did a little research on how it started. On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation inviting citizens of the United States to "set apart and observe the last Thursday of November, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise." His act established Thanksgiving as a national event. Thanksgiving that year was celebrated on November. 26, one week after Lincoln's trip to a small Pennsylvania town, where he memorialized the fallen in one of the Civil War's most critical and devastating battles. With bodies still lying unburied in the fields behind him, Lincoln asked the nation to "highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom." And with those words, Lincoln rewrote America's political lineage. He traced the nation's birth to the Declaration of Independence, in which Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal, instead of the Constitution, which allowed slavery to exist. During the four years of the Civil War, more than 620,000 people would die — 2% of the population. Nearly everyone who survived the war was touched by it in some way.

Even amid such profound sorrow, Lincoln found the reason to give thanks. It all bears repeating, but for the sake of space here, I simply offer the last paragraph. We might ask this question: "What would happen if an American President used this kind of language again in an official proclamation? How could the tide change for our country if our nation turned its heart toward God again?

President Lincoln finishes his proclamation with: "I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are 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 imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, 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."

Happy Thanksgiving, my precious FB friends!
"Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD....." Psalm 33:12

One Nation UNDER GOD!

Day 232 of Photo Inspirations -- One Nation UNDER GOD
Aw!  The 50s...Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, I Love Lucy, Ozzie & Harriet, Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best, Poodle Skirts, Hula Hoops!!!

What a great, Be-Bop-A-Lula time we had Saturday night -- celebrating the Sock Hop days of the 50s at my community, Hyde Park at Tulsa Hills.  I did my best  "Olivia Newton John" impersonation from Grease.  As one of the hosts of the event, it was such a treat to research some of the 50s memories, like those I mentioned above, in black and white TV, "Name That Tune" show (we played it at our party), hula hooping (I won that one! LOL!), bubble gum blowing contest, etc.  I am a Baby Boomer, one of the record number of babies (3.4 million) born in the U.S. (must have been a lot of cold nights -- LOL!).  

Goodness -- have times ever changed the way of doing things since then.  Compared to today, it's a wonder we survived those days, and are even here to tell the story!  My fellow 50s generation will recall that, as toddlers, no car seats, instead, we stood by our parents and what stopped us from being thrown into the windshield when they stopped the car quickly, was their automatic arm.  We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles.  When we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or even shoes.  We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.  We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!   We didn't have video games, no 99+ channels on cable, no DVD movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no computers, no Internet, BUT.......WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!  

Lots of blast-from-the-past memories, but I wouldn't trade those days for these days for anything -- particularly when it comes to child safety in cars and otherwise, and brilliant technology that makes life so much easier. There's just no sense living in the past and thinking about the way things were. There's just too much to celebrate about the way things ARE, and that God intended us to be here and be fully engaged AT THIS TIME.

But there's also paramount things that should NEVER be changed.  One of the most critically important decisions that was made in 1954 was the addition of "One Nation Under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.  And in 1957, our currency was printed with "In God We Trust" words on it.

Yesterday, my FB post was about those words: "In God We Trust".   Yes, there are those who want to stamp out God from our schools and public places. But, here's the deal -- emperors have tried to destroy those words, philosophies have tried to stamp them out, tyrants have tried to wash them from the face of the earth with the very blood of those who claimed it, yet, it still stands. "In God We Trust" is still our non-negotiable.  It is indelibly printed in our hearts, our spirits and our minds.  Now, let's pray that our nation NEVER concedes to letting it go.  

"Blessed is the Nation is "whose God is the Lord." Psalm 33:12



Psalm 100:5;  'For the Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness TO ALL GENERATIONS."