On Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is sneaky early this year, don’t you think!? How do I know it’s that time of year? I’ll tell you how, someone stole my sunlight!

That said, it does seem appropriate to reflect on gratitude as we enter into the season of giving thanks. So, with that in mind, here are a few favorite quotes for the season.

“We tend to take all the gifts and pleasures and happiness and the joy without saying much to God.  We take our health and strength, our food and clothing and our loved ones, all for granted; but the moment anything goes wrong we start grumbling and complaining and we say ‘Why should God do this to me, why should this happen to me?’  How slow we are to thank and swift to grumble.” [Martyn Lloyd-Jones]

“Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many–not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”  [Charles Dickens]

“I hate ingratitude more in man than lying, vainness, drunkenness or any taint of vice, whose strong corruption inhibits our frail blood.” [Shakespeare]

“You say, ‘If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.’ You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.” [Charles Haddon Spurgeon]

“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… 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, tranquillity and Union.” [President Abraham Lincoln: Proclamation of Thanksgiving]