Happy Thanksgiving! The Immigrants Holiday Since 1540 AD

Happy Thanksgiving! It is 6:00 am and a beautiful morning. It will be just the three of us today: Paul, me and our granddaughter. I made the pies and cornbread last night, and Paul has the turkey marinating in brine. We added a ham to the menu, as Granddaughter doesn't care for turkey.

We have much to be grateful for.  We are Christians: assured of redemption, and secure in knowing we again will see our loved ones who have gone on before us.

We live in America, free to live, believe, work, think and speak; free to make for ourselves the best life we can on our own, not shackled into some hereditary "class" or trade, not under the thumb of hereditary governance.

We have great wealth, no matter our circumstances. Even the poorest among us have access to warm shelter, sufficient food, hope for a future better than our past.

I have never figured out how to "bump" posts without messing up the timeline, so here are links to Pecan Corner's most "classic" Thanksgiving Day posts. If you like them, please feel free to share. :-)

The Immigrants Holiday: Thanksgiving and The Original Melting Pot 

First Turkey Days! Thanksgiving Feasts in America 1540 - 1640 (or "The Real History of Thanksgiving")

God bless you, and God bless America!

(PS The Photo is of Wild Persimmon Trees on an Oklahoma byway. I took the picture when I went home for a visit last weekend. Mama and I had a lot of fun picking them - this was something she used to take us to do when we were growing up! They ripen in the fall, and are not edible until ripe - usually after the first heavy frost. But don't think just freezing them will work if they are not ripe yet. It won't! So you just have to stake out your tree and try to get there before the possums do! :-)  )

Hope at a Hard Time

"On Christ the solid Rock I stand - all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand."

It's a scary world, tonight. Those of us who have lived and seen how civilizations can crumble, who know the danger signs, who remember the ingredients that generated the good life we've shared across the world, and who remember the hard aching slog to pull out of the mire back onto solid ground: we had hoped to spare our children the toil, but it looks like our efforts have not been enough to push back against the entropy.

Our liberal friends don't understand the despair we feel, and like they did after all the other encroachments against American liberty, they roll their eyes and dismiss our worries as unwarranted silliness. The less charitable, incapable of compassion, continue to project their own feelings onto us: they think it's all a game, that we are just being competitive and write us off as poor losers; they project their own secret "isms" onto people who actually live in unity with true equality, they refuse to recognize that the only place bigotry still exists is in their own hearts and minds.

It tempts one toward despair.

But for just such times as these, God tells us: "FEAR NOT. ALL SHALL BE WELL."

I receive the David Wilkerson Devotionals each day, and these have truly been a God-send, a treasure trove of reminders that God's ways do not depend on human organization or plans. Here's a snip from one called "The Impossible Mission", that tonight, especially, has given me great relief and comfort:

"We must realize that Jesus was talking to ordinary, insignificant, uneducated men and women. He was placing the very future of His Church on their shoulders. They must have been overwhelmed.

"Can you imagine the conversation that must have taken place once their Master ascended to heaven? "Did I hear Him right? How could we start a worldwide revolution? We're penniless and the Romans are beating and killing us. If we are treated this way here in Jerusalem, how will we be treated when we witness and preach in Rome?”

"Another might have said, "How does our Lord expect us to go into all the world with the gospel when we don't even have enough money to go to Jericho? How are we to learn languages when we haven't been educated? This is all impossible."

"It was indeed an impossible mission. Yet our challenge today is just as daunting!

"If all who read this message would allow the Holy Spirit to make this word real to them — to seek Him for His burden and guidance — there is no telling what kind of harvest the Spirit might reap. The truth is, the greatest works for eternity are done not in mass crusades, but with one saint reaching one lost soul."

This bears repeating: "The truth is, the greatest works for eternity are done not in mass crusades, but with one saint reaching one lost soul. "

That is where we came from. Constantly, all of Christian history rises from this. We must know that this pattern will continue into the future as well. God loves His people, and this, today, is an opportunity to strengthen our faith, to look to today with confidence that tomorrow is in the hands of our great Good Father, who will fight for us on our behalf. We need merely stand faithful in Jesus.

Be of good cheer! Hold fast the faith! God will not allow your foot to stumble!