This week is a specific time that’s been set aside for thanksgiving. In the troubled times in which we live, it’s important we regularly count our blessings. We still live in the most blessed and prosperous country ever to exist. This is one of the reasons our Convention of States Action team is committed to fighting every day to save our republic. If America were to fail, there is nowhere else to go.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln established the national holiday of Thanksgiving. The text is below. In it, you’ll find important parallels to what we face today. These are my takeaways from Lincoln’s proclamation. Perhaps you may agree or have other impressions.
It’s easy to be caught up in our daily lives and to forget what’s important. We go to work, take our kids to school or go to the grocery store without giving much thought. This is all part of our routine. There are so many parts of the world where this is a unique experience. In some countries people risk their lives to do these things. These moments are all blessings from God.
Humans are imperfect beings and in constant need of God’s grace. We have made a mess of this wonderful creation we’ve been given. Our charge is to be a caretaker of our temporary home on Earth. I believe more and more people each day are awakening to that fact. It will take considerable effort to restore our republic. Each of us has a choice if we are willing to put forth the effort to restore it. The good thing for us is we are recipients of God’s grace, which we are unworthy of receiving.
I am thankful I have the opportunity to serve our Convention of States Action’s team. I do not ask for God’s guidance and forgiveness nearly as often as I should. It’s a good thing for me (as it is for each of us) that God is patient for those who are striving to do his will and compassionate when we fail. Let us remember each day how fortunate we are to live in America and who is the source of our blessings.
In liberty,
Brett
President Abraham Lincoln’s
Proclamation of Thanksgiving
Issued, October 3, 1863
The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to invite and provoke the aggressions of foreign States, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
The needful diversions of wealth and strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship. The axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people; I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to our beneficent Father, who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him that, for such singular deliverances and blessings; they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
Abraham Lincoln
By the President: William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
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