This week we have been reading the book Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving and learning about President Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation making the holiday a national one once and for all. I have enjoyed learning about Thanksgiving in a way that goes beyond the first Thanksgiving with Pilgrims and Indians, Native Americans, if you will. I never realized that before President Lincoln (one of my favorite presidents), Thanksgiving was a state holiday around the country, but not in every state; that other presidents declared a day of Thanksgiving on an annual basis; and that several presidents refused to make Thanksgiving a national holiday.
We read Lincoln's proclamation which you can find here. Isn't it inspiring that, in the midst of a civil war, one of the worst periods of our history, President Lincoln, a newly re-committed Christian, found reasons to thank God for what was good in the United States? I wish more of our current leaders would take the time to recognize what is good here - in a sincere-I-don't-care-if-it-gets-me-elected way.
On a lighter note, here is a simple Thanksgiving prayer with a bit of first Thanksgiving history thrown in.
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