Thanksgiving is hard. Not a new statement or one that took deep thought. People are hurting in so many ways and for so many reasons. Grief always shows up when the nation begins to focus on “the most wonderful time of the year.” Anger and frustration take a seat at the head of the table because when people gather together it is simply inevitable. Whatever your financial situation, it is rarely ideal, and holidays always bring extra expenses. Regardless of the size of the gathering, most are sitting around a table that contains people with whom they vehemently disagree or even wholly dislike. I could go on listing reasons. Thanksgiving is hard and we put a lot of pressure on ourselves, and each other, to make it not hard, which simply adds to the stress of a very difficult time.
It is my proposal that it was never meant to be easy. Thanksgiving is more of an “in spite of” than “because of” kinda holiday. No one who sat around that table on the first Thanksgiving sat there in a state of perfect peace and immense joy. The pilgrims had a total of 53 people present. We know that is because over half of their group had died trying to establish this new home. The Patuxet tribe of the Wampanog people had all, save one, died of a severe plague. Though Tisquantam was the one who had suffered most from that loss, the other tribes had worked together in Plymouth to trade with outsiders. They were no doubt affected by such a loss. A peace treaty had been negotiated, but neither side fully trusted, agreed with, or understood the other. Each person present at the first Thanksgiving had suffered greatly. They made a choice to gather anyway and be thankful for that which they did have. In spite of the loss, in spite of fear and misunderstanding, in spite of all the odds against them, they chose to focus on the good they could find.
Sarah Hale, who championed Thanksgiving as a national holiday, did so during an increasingly tense, and eventually war torn, era. She had been widowed early in her marriage and was left to raise five children with no father. Though many states and territories celebrated a day of giving thanks it took a valiant effort to have it nationally recognized. Having petioned presidents for 17 years to institute a national day of observance for thanksgiving, it was finally Abraham Lincoln, in the middle of the Civil War, who finally decreed that there would be a National Day of Thanksgiving and Praise. Certainly these two people, along with the rest of the nation had suffered so severely that words cannot describe it. Yet, they chose to focus on the good they could find.
Thanksgiving was never a celebration of lavish wealth or of a life of ease and comfort. Thanksgiving was first an intentional choice by two people groups, who had suffered greatly, to focus on that for which they could give thanks. Thanksgiving is hard. Each of us has suffered in various ways. Our grief, hurt, anger, and frustration are real. Our pain is real. Let us not ignore it, but choose to be thankful in spite of what we have lost, in spite of our current circumstances, in spite of our misunderstandings. Let us choose to look until we find those events, those people, those things for which we are deeply grateful.
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