HAPPY THANKSGIVING !
For me, the whole thing about Thanksgiving is that the Pilgrims went thru serious hardships when they were settling America, and they couldn’t have survived at times without Indian assistance. They believed in God’s providence guiding them to the new territory, but they were perhaps naive in understanding all it would take to set up an entirely new civilization of sorts, in a new land!
The task of building, defending, dealing with a different climate and growing food, etc., must have taken most of their time and energy. But they were armed with a knowledge of where they’d been and what they wanted in the future, so they could press on with confidence and hope where most would want to go back home and live under rigid laws.
A few years before the Pilgrims and Indians had their first Thanksgiving, the Virginia Company settlers made a truce with the Powhatan Tribe because of the chiefs daughter and an English clergyman Whitaker. It was because of Pocahontas’ conversion to the Christian lifestyle of her husband John Rolfe that the two peoples co-existed side by side. There was peace between different peoples for awhile because of one significant woman taking on the identity of the ‘enemy’ in love.
I think this is a lesson we should consider being we have such diverse opinions in our country. We can insist on having things our own way or we can look for ways to unite with others. I think the answer is in reflecting on how we got to where we are today. The good things that we strove for, the issues we overcame. Many of us have a belief in God, but He’s not the first in line for our affections.
If we believe in a good God for all, then we can stop violence. A person who’s ‘in God’, knows God will work thru differences & trials aren’t meant to kill him. When he encounters the heaviest of losses, betrayals or physical suffering he knows who’s he is, and he can take way beyond the normal heartache or struggles.
I’m so thankful for how much good has happened in the last 2 years despite enduring the most painful thing a parent can experience. God’s helped me see beyond my loss, beyond the pain with the defendants. God doesn’t lose sight of our possibilities, as we do many times.
You may think you’re going thru the hardest thing ever, and there’s no way out, but …. ‘what man thinks is impossible, is possible with God’! (Matt. 19:26.)