The REAL Miracle of the First Thanksgiving

For many years during the month of November, nosotros encouraged our immature children to identify something every unmarried 24-hour interval that they were thankful for.  We wrote these sugariness sentiments down and hung each i on our "Thankful Tree" in preparation for Thanksgiving.   Once Thanksgiving Twenty-four hour period arrives, my family enjoys the tradition of going effectually the table and sharing something from the by twelvemonth that each of u.s. are thankful for.

I e'er thought the bespeak of Thanksgiving was to show thankfulness and gratitude.  And it is…merely I also recall it is something more than.

I was reading a unproblematic volume with my 2nd class girl titledThe Starting time Thanksgiving.As we were reading, something profound occurred to me that I had never really considered before.  I had never stopped to realize that theexistentmiracle of Thanksgiving wasn't that the Pilgrims fled religious persecution and fabricated it over on the Mayflower.

Therealmiracle of Thanksgiving wasn't that many of them survived a grueling and vicious winter.

Theexistentphenomenon of Thanksgiving wasn't that they had a plentiful harvest, thank you to the help of Samoset and Squanto.

The real miracle wasn't that non a unmarried Pilgrim returned to England on the Mayflower when it departed.

Therealmiracle of Thanksgiving was that ii people groups, who should have been enemies and were different in every conceivable way, came together in the unity of their shared humanity.

I don't know why this fact had never occurred to me before.  I've read some variation of the story of the start Thanksgiving probably a grand times in my lifetime.  And I e'er thought the point was that they were grateful for surviving up to that indicate.  They were grateful for the help that the Native Americans provided.

Merely what the original Thanksgiving Banquet has shown me in light of ourverypolarized world is that information technology is possible for people from 2 different worlds to come together and be thankful with and foreach other.

Despite their fright of each other.  Despite their differences in every conceivable way.  Despite different cultures and customs.  Despite worshipping differently.

It is no surprise, then, that Abraham Lincoln was the President who initiated the National vacation of Thanksgiving on October 3, 1863 during the height of the Civil War.  He signed a annunciation that the last Th of November would be set apart as, "a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens."  Up until this indicate, private states historic Thanksgiving at their own times e'er since George Washington's suggestion of such a holiday 74 years prior.  Lincoln'due south decision was prompted by many letters from a adult female named Sarah Hale, urging the President to plant a "day of our annual Thanksgiving fabricated a National and fixed Union festival."

I take to believe that President Lincoln recognized something that I had long since glossed over in regards to the celebration of Thanksgiving.

Within his proclamation, Lincoln writes:

"In the midst of a civil state of war of unequalled magnitude and severity…"

Lincoln then shares the blessings that they have received in the midst of that year like peace with other nations, enlarged borders, yields from harvests and mining, and increasing population.

"No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.  They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.  It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should solemnly, reverently, and gratefully best-selling as with one heart and with one voice past the whole American people.

"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 intendance all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the pitiful civil strife in which are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Paw to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may exist consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Wedlock."

As we draw closer to this Thanksgiving vacation, we are obviously not fighting a war with guns and swords.  Just there is a unlike "civil war" of unequalled magnitude and severity that is being fought with ugly words of hatred for those who recollect differently than we exercise.  Our fractured relationships and hardened hearts are the battleground carnage.

So I urge you…in this time of turmoil, where relationships take been upended and churches fractured by varying thoughts on masks, vaccine mandates, racial tensions, and political ideaology, may nosotros remember the first Thanksgiving.  May nosotros remember the twenty-four hours this declaration was made and the beginning of a National Vacation.  May we remember that we are all homo beings, fellow image bearers of Christ, and may we evidence thankfulness with1 eye and withone vox.

Afterward all, therealmiracle of Thanksgiving is unity.

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Source: https://www.icanteachmychild.com/the-real-miracle-of-the-first-thanksgiving/

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