Thursday, November 23, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving!


This will be on the brief side, because I need to get back to making a green bean casserole (yes, with the crunchy onion straws on top, yummy) for our Thanksgiving feast today . . . but I had to pause on this special holiday and give thanks for all of my blessings.

I read, for the first time today, George Washington's speech given as he instituted Thanksgiving as an official U.S. holiday. I highly recommend it as an uplifting and thought-provoking read (that will only take you one, maybe two minutes). Check it out here:
http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/milestones/thanksgiving_read.html

I am so grateful that George Washington had the vision to see that all of the blessings he had received as a man, as a leader--were because of the providence of God. I firmly believe that. I firmly believe and know that God is our Father, that He loves us, and that He desires to bless us and does so in innumerable ways.

My life is blessed to the brim! I have my faith; I have a wonderful family (and a baby, healthy by all reports, on the way); I have my freedom; I have opportunity. I have so many blessings, many of which I know I fail to recognize. But I do want to write that I know that all of my blessings (whether I acknowledge them at this point in my life or not) come because there is a God and He loves me.

In closing, I want to include a passage of scripture from the Book of Mormon that is very meaningful to me, particularly on this day. It is taken from a speech given by a king to his people as he is about to pass away. This king is very righteous and as such, spent his days in the service of his people and thus in the service of his God. This is what he had to say about giving thanks:

Mosiah 2:20–22
20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—
21 I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.
22 And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.


I know that those words are true. That though we can never deserve the blessings we receive, as we do our best and trust God, He will nonetheless bless us for our good.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! (-Jocelyn)

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