Giving thanks to God for life

CINDY TRANE CHRISTESON

“Better to lose count while naming your blessings than to lose your

blessings by counting your troubles.”

-- MALTBIE D. BABCOCK

“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.”

-- AMBROSE OF MILAN

This column appears the week before Thanksgiving. I’ve realized

lately how many things I take for granted in my life and in our

county, and how I need to thank God more for all he provides.

We have so much to be thankful for in this country, and many of us

will talk about that on Thursday with friends and family. Some will

enjoy festivities around tables overflowing with food, but others

might not feel so grateful. Even if some aren’t happy about his or

her current situation in life, I pray that everyone can find one

thing to thank God for, perhaps the gift of life.

I wanted to include the following; perhaps some of us could read

it again on Thursday, and be reminded of what the day is all about:

A Thanksgiving Day Proclamation

“The year that is drawing toward 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 theater of military

conflict; while that theater 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 ax had 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 battlefield; 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 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.”

-- Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Whether on Thanksgiving or not, as much as is possible, let us try

to count our blessings more than our troubles; to remember God; and

to give him the thanks he deserves.

* CINDY TRANE CHRISTESON is a Newport Beach resident who speaks

frequently to parenting groups. She can be reached via e-mail at

cindy@onthegrow.com or by mail at 537 Newport Center Drive, No. 505,

Newport Beach, CA 92660.