Fall

I love the fall of the year. I love everything about it. I love the leaves turning, and fallen leaves on the ground. I love the cooler weather. I love the pleasant days and the cold nights. I love being in the house, snug and warm with the heater running. I love the days when it is cold enough to actually need the heater, and believe me there aren't that many. Football. I love the holidays of fall, starting with Halloween, my birthday (this Sunday if you want to send a gift :0)), and Thanksgiving. The beginning of the Christmas season.

Seems, though, that these days we skip from Halloween directly to Christmas. Thanksgiving has been relegated to a brief blip in the two month long Christmas season. Yet it is so much more.

Here in America, we have so much. And because we have so much, we take so much for granted. When even those classified as poor have a solid roof over their heads, a car, cell phones, computers, a television in every room, and designer clothes, it's easy to take things for granted.

Think with me for a moment if you will of those first settlers. We think of them as the Pilgrims. When we go around the table at Thanksgiving, we offer up the same lifeless platitudes every year. It's like a dull, school lecture. I'm thankful for health, family, freedom. Yet those are the very things we tend to take for granted.

The settlers in Plymouth didn't have their health. They had come through a harsh winter during which half their numbers had died, and even the ones who had survived were very ill. Many of them no longer had family. Husbands lost wives. Wives lost husbands. Children lost parents. But they were thankful. They were thankful for the homes they had built. They were thankful for the friendly relations with the Natives. They were thankful for the abundant harvest. They were thankful just to be alive.

And they knew to whom they were thankful. They were thankful to God and for the first time in their lives they had the freedom to express that thanks in the way that seemed best to them. That was the thing that they were most thankful for.

As we approach this Thanksgiving season, let's remember that it is more than just a day to stuff yourself and watch football. Remember those early settlers. Remember that they risked--and some gave--their very lives to do what we take for granted every day. Remember to Whom you should be thankful.

And express that thanks in the way that seems right to you.