Pre-Thanksgiving (and a bit about my sale)

Giving thanks in the 1600s.

I like to look at Thanksgiving and be grateful to the Lord for all He gives us.

A lot of my fellow Americans, including my family in Michigan, are having a world of snow dumped on them right now, making life difficult and in some cases dangerous. Buffalo looks set to record more snow in a three day span than it usually gets for the whole year.

Here in Brisbane, we had a storm the other day. A big, tropical monster that bore down and tore down. Thunder pealed and shook the walls and lightning put us back

Some stuff is no joke.

pre-Benjamin Franklin (electricity) for a little bit. There'll be more of them in the coming months because it's Brisbane. Three years ago the city - the actual city center of Brisbane - was flooded, as were many suburbs along the river. Most of the state was a declared disaster zone because of the rain and ten people died.

This is not meant to be a depressing post, though! This is meant to be uplifting. Please let me explain why.

The early Pilgrims and Puritans also, were subjected to the cruel and capricious variances of the seasons and a small colony from Europe had no reason to suppose that their little experiment could produce such fabulous success. They were so grateful to the Lord (being Pilgrims and Puritans, after all) for the harvest that they simply gave thanks. The Plimoth Plantation website states it thus:


In 1621, when their labors were rewarded with a bountiful harvest after a year of sickness and scarcity, the Pilgrims gave thanks to God and celebrated His bounty in the Harvest Home tradition with feasting and sport (recreation). To these people of strong Christian faith, this was not merely a revel; it was also a joyous outpouring of gratitude.


This is certainly the proper attitude for we Christians!

It's hard, very very hard to be thankful these days. Maybe it always was, but I think we've been conditioned to expect things, to expect good, to expect success. We often do more complaining than we need to. Being thankful sometimes seems not in our western genes.

But we do have so much to be thankful for! Firstly, that we can indeed give thanks to a Lord who came down from Heaven for the purposes of dying for our sins, so that we can be redeemed and spend eternity with Him. Just acknowledging that Jesus cared and loved enough to be among us and then be crucified by His own creation. And, then who rose again after three days. Christ, the King.

There are also other, worldly things to be thankful for.

If you serve a turkey this Thanksgiving, know that there are families in India who think you are unbelievably rich. If you go to church on or around Thanksgiving, know that you can likely worship in safety, which was not the experience recently, of four Israelis in Jerusalem. If you celebrate with relatives, know that there are those who are alone and long for the love you share with your family.

And if the weather is nice for you, give ye thanks to the Lord, and forget not your brothers and sisters upon whose house the snow doth fall.

Thanksgiving is coming!!!

(Also, I'm having a sale. You can find it here at my shop.)