True Thanksgiving

Greetings beloved,

This Thursday I as well as the rest of America will be celebrating our Thanksgiving holiday, a feast day that over time has lost its real meaning and purpose. Today, Thanksgiving is treated as a day to gather with family and friends to pig out on turkey with all the fixin's, just to fall asleep in the recliner after a generous helping of pumpkin pie. Furthermore, our schools are now teaching that the reason for Thanksgiving celebration is because the Indians introduced us to corn.

The truth is, the Pilgrim's were Christians and they had come to America seeking religious freedom. During their first year in America the Pilgrims were unable to grow or store enough food. They were also unable to build proper shelter to protect them from their first winter in this new land, and so many of them died as a result of exposure to the elements and starvation.

In spite of the seemingly insurmountable odds, the surviving Pilgrims prayed for their deliverance, and provision. During their second year God in His faithfulness introduced them to the local natives who shared their knowledge of living off of the land.

The Pilgrims learned to cultivate their crops (of which corn was the majority), to gather and store other foods, how to hunt and fish and how to prepare the meat for long term storage by smoking and salting. When the harvest had been completed they realized that they had more than enough food and adequate shelter to see them through the coming winter. In response to their answered prayer, the greatful Pilgrims then declared three days of feasting to Thank God for His abundant provision and blessing.

Pilgrim Edward Winslow described their Thanksgiving in these words; "Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling [bird hunting] so that we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as... served the company almost a week... Many of the Indians [came] amongst us and... their greatest King, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought... And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet BY THE GOODNESS OF GOD WE ARE... FAR FROM WANT."

In 1789, following a proclamation issued by President George Washington, America celebrated its first Day of Thanksgiving to God under its new constitution. That same year, the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which President Washington was a member, announced that the first Thursday in November would become its regular day for giving thanks, "unless another day be appointed by the civil authorities."

The latter ANNUAL national Thanksgiving Day may be attributed to Mrs. Sarah Joseph Hale, who for thirty years promoted the idea of a national Thanksgiving Day, contacting President after President until President Abraham Lincoln responded in 1863 by setting aside the last Thursday of November as a national Day of Thanksgiving. Over the next seventy-five years, Presidents followed Lincoln's precedent, annually declaring a national Thanksgiving Day. Then, in 1941, Congress permanently established the fourth Thursday of each November as a national holiday.

The original 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation came at a pivotal point in Lincoln's life. During the first week of July of that year, the Battle of Gettysburg occurred, resulting in the loss of some 60,000 American lives. Four months later in November, Lincoln delivered his famous "Gettysburg Address." It was while Lincoln was walking among the thousands of graves there at Gettysburg that he committed his life to Christ. He explains: "When I left Springfield [to assume the Presidency] I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ."

With a current President who openly refuses to engage in a Christian day of prayer and amidst a society of ever increasing antagonism towards anything godly, it seems as if America has forgotten all of the wonderful things that God has provided for this great Christian nation. My sincere prayer is that we would remember and retain the original gratefulness to God displayed by the Pilgrims and many other founding fathers , and remember that it is to those early and courageous Pilgrims that we owe not only the traditional Thanksgiving holiday but also the concepts of freedom, self-government, the "hard-work" ethic, self-reliant communities, religious freedom and devout Christian faith.

This Thanksgiving day, before the turkey is carved, ask your family to take a moment and name something that they can be thankful for, and then when everyone has finished their meal, say a prayer of Thanks to God. You'll be glad you did!

God's blessings to you all this Thanksgiving!

Your servant in Christ,
+Ernest A. Ross