Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the United States, celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. It originated as a harvest festival. Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, with a proclamation by George Washington after a request by Congress.

Thanksgiving became a federal holiday in 1863, during the American Civil War. Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November.

The event that Americans commonly call the “First Thanksgiving” was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October 1621. This feast lasted three days, and—as accounted by attendee Edward Winslow — it was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims. The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating “thanksgivings”—days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.

Today, we recognize the importance of thanking God each day, in all things, as He has commanded us to do in 1 Thessalonians 5:18. And we remember Psalms 50:23 where God tells us that, “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies Me.” This offering of thanksgiving which glorifies God is not merely external, it is gratitude truly felt in the heart.

Our prayer is that you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!