I know that it appears to be a bit late to give thanks during the Thanksgiving holiday, but the truth is that every day should be Thanksgiving!  Last week I was reminded to give thanks, yet this time was different.  I think it finally sank in, and when I gave thanks I was truly honoring God for all of his blessings and my sufferings.  I honor His grace.

Late last week I learned about the initial intention of Thanksgiving which was proclaimed by Abe Lincoln.  I realized and believed, for the first time in my life, that we truly live in a country that loves God.  Well, at least we used to.  My soul and my faith were invigorated when I took to heart the intention our founding fathers and their establishment of this great country.  It felt like something I could believe in.  Then, I was reminded just the other day (again), of how rare of an opportunity we have to live in this great country.  We are free!!  We are the few, however, and I don’t know that I give as much thanks for what has been extended to me.  We are the minority, and when you really stop to think about it…it’s horrific.  We have everything and yet we are wasteful, unappreciative, and greedy for more.  I’m embarrassed for my actions while the rest of the world looks on.  Again…we are FREE!  Why isn’t anyone asking “why”?  Does anyone care?  It really doesn’t seem so because during the ONE day that has been set aside to do so, we become more lazy, we overindulge in everything, we are wasteful, and then the day after Thanksgiving we spend time buying gifts for people who really have EVERYTHING!  Where is God?  “Well, we prayed at dinner”, we say.  But where is the honor, and more importantly, where is the action?!

We have the freedoms that we do because our founding fathers were “Jesus FREAKS” and they believed in the bible with everything they had.  It shows!!!  Look what they created!!  Freedom!  Nothing else than the design of God!  It works because Jesus is real!  Look around the world.  Where you find Jesus you will find the pursuit of freedom.  Abe Lincoln proclaimed a day of thanksgiving to do nothing more than praise God!

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. 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 be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. 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 care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State