This week I am excited about Thanksgiving. Last Thanksgiving we were in Nigeria, but we were so busy getting ready to leave for the States for Nigeria’s elections, we did not do anything different or special, we just kept on working. Well, this year we get to have Thanksgiving with American friends who are also missionaries in Nigeria! I am so excited! It is fun and encouraging to get together with others who are in the same boat as you and not in your home country. I will miss our family so much, but am thankful for the expanded family God has given us here in Nigeria and the chance to celebrate His goodness, protection, and care as we gather and share stories about what God is doing in our respective home states in Nigeria.
Thursday when you gather with friends and family, remember this does not need to be the only time you display “Thankfulness”. Something I have tried for years is to display an “attitude of gratitude”. I know this sounds Oprahish, but it is so true. Truly being grateful and content in your spirit for all life has for you and the provisions God has given us is a lifestyle. A simple choice and then a lifestyle, that’s all it takes!
My thought for today is this: This Thanksgiving START living with an attitude of gratitude. Start that day out being thankful for the electricity or gas to cook your turkey, the ability to gather as a family, the sister that always annoys you, or the cousin who is too obnoxious for words. Draw a line in the sand and say, “from this day forward I will live in gratitude”.
Amen sister! You preach it!
Thanks Lynne, you are a wonderful example to me in this area!
Thank you Tina for great reminders!! Hopefully our line won’t be in snow.. :0 I know, making you jealous for that wonderful, bracing cold! Found an old prayer from Robert Louis Stevenson…. Good for Thanksgiving and every day!!
Lord, behold our family here assembled.
We thank Thee for this place in which we dwell;
for the love that unites us;
for the peace accorded us this day;
for the hope with which we expect the morrow;
for the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies,
that make our lives delightful;
and for our friends in all parts of the earth.
Let peace abound in our small company.
Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge.
Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere.
Give us the grace to accept and to forgive offenders.
Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully
the forgetfulness of others.
Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind.
Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.
Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors.
If it may not, give us the strength to encounter
that which is to come,
that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation,
temperate in wrath,
and in all changes of fortune, and, down to the gates of death,
loyal and loving one to another.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Pam, thank you for this! This is awesome! May this be my prayer daily!
Love you and enjoy with your dear family!!