"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever." (NIV)
In just a few short hours there will be busyness in homes across America as families get ready to welcome home son's and daughter's, their families and friends to celebrate the day of thanksgiving. As I pondered this question above I couldn't think of anything to write until now.
Thanksgiving is a day where all of us can be thankful for the sacrifices our ancestors took just to come to the shores of this new land. I pictured families meeting in their old countries around a stone fireplace talking about everyone's initial impressions of leaving home permanently and coming to this place. I wondered if there were mother's who cried at the thought of leaving their friends, their customs and their homes they spent months making it into a home just to go to this new country they knew nothing about to try their hand at something they wondered would succeed.
I pictured the children packing their things into the luggage crates and as they packed they cried knowing they would probably never see their friend again. I pictured little girls hugging their friend while saying goodbye and giving their friend something to remember them by when they leave.
I pictured the excitement when they boarded the steamer ship and the sorrow as their homeland slowly disappeared as the ship moved away from it's shore. We didn't have the instant communications like we do now and just to hear anything from their homeland often took months and even years to get a response. There was a lot of love that went into writing a letter on parchment which is an art form slowly becoming a lost format today because of instant communication.
No sooner had they unpacked and moved into settlements known as little Sweden, little Italy, little Germany did our ancestors begin wondering if they made the right decision. The industrial age assured the need for worker's from these countries and to many of our ancestors the decision to move had solidified once paychecks came in and they could buy a home of their own.
Our ancestors discovered that this new land was in deed a land of milk and honey. It was a land where if you had a dream and you had the will anyone could become a success. They discovered that this new land quickly had some of the greatest higher learning institutions in all the world. Sure, other countries could boast having higher math and science scores on their aptitude tests, but only in america can a young person find a way of becoming educated even if he could not get into the college ranks because of his failure to master the achievement tests. In most other countries young people were separated from their friends when they could not master those tests.
I am thankful for having a system in place to help educate young people with special needs and through this system they are reminded that they too can be a success even with a disability. I am thankful that America is a land of second chances, With just a little extra help many of them were able to get into good trades and college careers. Only in this new land do we value everyone regardless of race, sex, creed, or disability. Each life is important and each life has value.
I am thankful for our form of participatory government where everyone has a voice to express themselves to those who represent them. We may get angry, have bar fights with those who do not agree with our vote, but when the election is done we come together as one nation and we support those in power as a show of force to the rest of the world that America is the greatest nation built on the hard labor and the sweat of many ancestors who left home so future generations could have a better life.
So as you sit down this Thanksgiving holiday and as the turkey get's carved say a word of thanks for the ones sitting around that table and for the blessings they have meant to you this past year.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment