Many Americans think of Thanksgiving as a wonderful time to take off work, celebrate a long weekend, eat a great dinner, visit with friends and family. I’ve even heard folks say; “Happy Turkey Day” on Thanksgiving and it leaves me wondering how many people have just plain forgotten the meaning of giving thanks and have reduced themselves to turkeys and turkey eaters on this day. To remember the real meaning behind Thanks Giving might then be one of the most important reasons we all need to give meaning to Thanksgiving Day…
Throughout our history we have had many wonderful reminders of the meaning and purpose of Thanksgiving Day. Some of these reminders are posted by a few of our early Pioneers and founding Fathers as follows:
“All ye Pilgrims with your wives and little ones, do gather at the Meeting House, on the hill… there to listen to the pastor, and render Thanksgiving to the Almighty God for all His blessings…”
~1620 Governor William Bradford leader of the Pilgrim Colony
“That with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their Divine Benefactor, and their humble and earnest supplication that it may please God…”
~1777 Congress of the United States first National Thanksgiving Proclamation
“Our duty as a people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God, and to implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experienced…”
~January 1, 1795 George Washington first United States President set aside Thursday, the 19th day of February, 1795 as a National Day of Thanksgiving
“Announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, by the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people…”
ORIGIN OF THANKSGIVING
