Thanksgiving is about being thankful

Happy thanksgiving.  I am thankful for a merciful God who sent His Son as my redeemer and makes my salvation possible.

I am thankful for FINALLY coming to the understanding of what the finished work of Jesus Christ really did, realizing that God’s grace has empowered me to do what I couldn’t do in myself, and that I have been MADE righteous, holy, and sanctified, not that it was anything I had to do other than believe.

I am thankful for my wife, children and grandchildren.  I love each and every one of them and wish only the best for each one of them.  I am proud of each of them for what they have become and what they will become.

I am thankful for my parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters and their families.  From those youthful days of my heritage, sitting around the table, eating turkey and dressing and eating pies and visiting. I thank them for sharing their lives with me.

I am thankful for my extended family even though we can’t together during this thanksgiving period to visit and remanence about growing up together and share a small piece of our lives with each other and their children as we have in the past.

I am thankful for all my friends around the nation and across the fruited plains.  You all have been kind enough to share your life with me and I have been blessed by your friendship.

I am thankful to be an American and live in the greatest nation on earth affording us the opportunity to succeed and fail, rise and fall but always move forward in a free nation.

I am thankful for all those who, over the decades, have done their duty serving this nation to make America a bastion of liberty and freedom and, yes, made it great!  They traveled to far off lands to insure that back home, their loved ones could rest assured that all is well.

I am thankful for all those who died in the defense of this nation.  They have assumed the position, permanently manning the sentinels of remembrance demonstrating the greatness of this nation and its people.

I am thankful for all those who came before me and built the path which I now trod.  They laid the foundations so you and I can enjoy this day with our families and friends.  They crossed the seas, built settlements, raised the crops, birthed children, defended their nation and moved us forward as a people to enable this very day.  Our today is a gift from our ancestors and they expect us to gift tomorrows to their children, our children.

We are to be thankful for the day, because it is gifted to each and every one of us and all those to follow us by those who came before.  We are their living representatives walking the earth and it is our duty to insure tomorrows for our children as a continuum of and tribute to their lives.

It is the faith of our fathers and mothers who built our families, our communities and nation.  On this day it is our responsibility to make sure that we remember their sacrifices in bringing us to this day and enabling our tomorrows.
​
I deserves mentioning again: I am thankful for a merciful God who sent His Son as my redeemer and makes my salvation possible and that His grace is so simple I didn’t need a theologian to help me mess it up.
~ Ted Nelson