A Reason to Give Thanks

Time to talk about you. You know, you are the reason for everything that happens in your life. Whether it is you making things happen, or someone doing something for you: everything in your life is about you. You are the center of your universe. When Christ comes to live inside of you, His love, His joy, His peace, His purpose becomes yours; the world still revolves around you, but Christ is now the center of the center of it. So, how do you find a reason to give thanks if everything in your life is done for or by you?

What about history? Is not the origin of the holiday, the celebration of the Pilgrims settling in the new world, free of religious tyranny a reason for thanks? The legacy of our ancestors and the founding of this great nation under God, is that not a reason to give thanks?

Well, when looking for a reason to give thanks, our first instinct is to look to those closest to us: our family. Is it not a reason to give thanks to have those we love near to us for the holiday? Is that not a good reason for thanks? Personally, I love spending time with my family, Thanksgiving is one of those special days where we all seem to get along; we appreciate each other for who we are on our best days and not what we do on our worst days. Thanksgiving is family. So, family is a reason to give thanks, right?

Then we have friends. One good friend is better to have than 1000 enemies. Friends are great. If you are anything like me, you do things not so much for the enjoyment of the activity so much as for the time with the person you are doing it with. Friends make you see things about yourself that you can’t see, they tell you things you don’t want to hear, and they help you grow in the Lord. Are friends not a reason for thanks?

If we see ourselves in sated scenes,

Of amber skies and Autumn leaves,

And dusk: the rolling billows sweeps,

With beauty of the Master’s hand;

Then to our souls the light doth whisper,

Love and hope in the dusk of November.

Fated is the woe of life, 

But through the storm the truth be told,

And we give thanks for hearth and home.

This day of thanks, the giving season,

The ties that bind do draw us near.

The essence of thanks; hear this: the truth!

The reason to give thanks, is inside of you.

Christ came, lived, died, rose again, and still saves. Pilgrims fled from danger to the lion’s mouth, forsaking health and security for freedom: for hope: for liberty. Give thanks, for every reason, on this, the giving day, the thankful season.

As always, thanks for reading. Like, comment, follow this blog, and check me out on social. I just got on Facebook yesterday! Friend me there and keep up with the blog.

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—the anonymous novelist