To Consider as We Give Thanks

What do we have to look forward to this week when we pause to give thanks for our blessings? The nation remains divided and prepares for two years of gridlock. Millions of ballots cast have made the red areas redder and the blue areas bluer. We are adrift, uncertain of our economic future and worried the country we know and love is headed for the ash heap of history.

Hate is met with hate. The calls for us to come together are rejected by those who demand retribution for indignities suffered at the hands of others going back centuries in some cases.

To bind up our wounds, to find the pathway forward toward a brighter, more cohesive tomorrow, let us look to Father Abraham, the providential president who saved the Union with his words.

In 1863, when it was not at all clear the nation would persevere, Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for a day of Thanksgiving that was oddly prophetic. The wisdom inherent in his remarks then provides important guidance for us now:

“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 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 provoke their aggressions, 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 plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax 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 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 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 Stated States to be affixed.

—PRESIDENT LINCOLN’S THANKSGIVING DAY PROCLAMATION, OCTOBER 3, 1863.

The great man, in his unique way, reminds us even now of what is profoundly important to us as people and as citizens of this great Republic. Moving forward, as we look outward and inward for the strength to make it through these difficult times, we focus on our blessings rather than on that which we may lack. For it is in our generosity of mind as well as in spirit that we will find the peace, unity and freedom we so desperately seek.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

READ NEXT: When in the Course of Human Events >>