A happy Thanksgiving 2025 to everyone! In the past we’ve reposted a generic reminder. This will be more personal.
This is the season people recall or might dispute historical events surrounding the origin of Thanksgiving. It’s a time to reflect on our undisputable blessings. My wife and I have been making concerted efforts to be grateful for the Lord’s provisions in the big things, but also the innumerable daily mundane blessings we take for granted.
I meet once every week with a prayer partner or two on Zoom. We make gratitude an integral part of our prayer session – as we should – even when we experience days that weigh heavily on our shoulders. It reminds us that God is good and that every good thing comes from Him, even under frowning providences.
Spare a thought for those who suffer greatly during this season. Darkness and chaos overwhelms them. Imagine Job’s friends sitting around the ash heap with him saying something like, “Cheer up, Buttercup, it is Thanksgiving after all. Be grateful!”
I know of people who are dying from cancer and clinging on to life in order to enjoy one last Thanksgiving and Christmas season with their families. There are those who lost spouses through death, or because of separation and divorce, or those who have children gone astray and in peril. Thanksgiving and Christmas will look and feel different to them.
Let us reach out to these people if we can, amidst gratitude for our own blessings. And then there are brothers and sisters around the world who suffer daily and even killed for their faith. Let’s remember the in our prayers.
David and Gratitude
Amidst all his great troubles and tribulations, King David habitually gave thanks to the Lord.
Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.
Psalm 107:1-3
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Psalm 103:2-5
Joy in Eternity
Whatever shadowy valleys we may find ourselves traveling through, our Shepherd walks with us until the end (Psalm 23).
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. Rom 8:18-19
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 1 John 3:2
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Rev 21:4
Pop in and take time reading A Pilgrim in Narnia’s bog post The Term is Over: The Holidays Have Begun.
And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. (C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle)
A Happy Thanksgiving and Maranatha, everyone!
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