Article by Kevin L. DeWitt

Of the several themes that run through Make The Days Count, gratitude is probably one of the more central and important ones.  It’s sometimes tough in the times we are living to be grateful for the blessings that we are given.   Financial crises, family and friends off to war, business failures, wondering if we will still have a job (or find a job) next year, not to mention the individual challenges we each face on more personal levels.  As Thanksgiving approaches, remembering to be grateful can be tough for each of us.

Personally, I worry about what the impact of our many crises will have on my family, my church and business, and me.  It’s difficult sometimes to be thankful for the many blessings God has given me, most undeserved.  And He has given me many. 

Perspective is so important at this time of the year. 

We are so much better off than others.  We are blessed to live in a country so rich in so many ways.  Putting Thanksgiving as a holiday into perspective is a humbling lesson.  President Abraham Lincoln obviously knew the importance of gratitude and giving thanks … even in the midst of what was the most severe national crisis our country had ever faced.  In October of 1863 Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation that the holiday was established as a national annual event.  This was a time when our country and Lincoln were locked in the middle of our horrifying Civil War.  Victory was not yet in sight, and no one knew whether we would survive as a nation.  

Yet rather than despair, Lincoln choose to focus on the blessings our nation enjoyed during the Autumn of 1863, as he said “The year that I drawing to a 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.” 

It is a lesson in gratitude and hope that we all can benefit from as we begin this holiday season and look to 2009.  Christian Nanz

Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1863:

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 defense, 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 consciousness 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, tranquility 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 United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

Editor’s Note: The first observance of the Thanksgiving national holiday came one week after the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery at Gettysburg, a harsh reminder of the sacrifice so many made for our country and our freedom.

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