A few days ago Empart had a planning session for 2010 and one of our US partner’s said, “Please make sure that we don’t put events on during the American Thanksgiving time!†He then went on to say that Thanksgiving is the biggest family event in the USA and it is almost impossible for people to get away during this time.
This comment made me do some research about American Thanksgiving and I learnt that this special holiday has been an annual tradition in the United States since 1863, becoming a federal holiday in 1941. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated to give thanks to God for helping the pilgrims survive the brutal winter and the first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days providing enough food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Indians. Although Thanksgiving was historically a religious observation to give thanks to God, it is now primarily identified as a secular holiday that is a time of parades, spending time with family, watching grid iron football games and feasting – especially on turkey!
The Bible teaches us to give thanks to the Lord – not just once a year but every day, in ALL situations. But I think it is a great thing to have a dedicated day to count our blessings and to honour the Lord and thank Him as individuals, as families and as a nation. Along with my Christian friends in America, I pray that the nation of America will re-discover the original intent of Thanksgiving. How wonderful it would be to see people everywhere stopping to say thank you to God.
Why don’t you take a few minutes to think about all the things that you can thank the Lord for? If you can’t think of any – well, if you are reading this means you have life, you can read, you have a computer, internet…so just say, “thank you, Lord!â€
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