Quote for Thanksgiving Day

"Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks, for His kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of His providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which He hath been pleased to confer upon us."

--George Washington, Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1789

Quote for Thanksgiving Day

Photo by Justin Soutar

"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 Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him 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, tranquillity and Union."

--Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1863

Reflection for Thanksgiving Day

"Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.... I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficient author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country... and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.”

--George Washington, Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1789

Happy Thanksgiving

Perhaps more than any other national holiday, Thanksgiving demonstrates America's fundamental identity as a Christian nation, a nation "under God." The Pilgrims who celebrated the first Thanksgiving in October of 1620 were deeply religious Christians who had sailed to this land primarily in order to worship God freely without government interference. They thanked God for the blessings of liberty as well as for the blessing of an abundant harvest that he bestowed upon them. Four centuries later, the Thanksgiving tradition that they started continues up to this day. More than two hundred years after that first Thanksgiving celebration, during a time of great national crisis, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln officially instituted Thanksgiving as an annual national holiday set on the fourth Thursday of November.

Today our nation is again in crisis as our federal government, led by President Barack Obama and his cohorts in the U.S. Senate, is now attacking the very foundation of religious liberty on which America was built by legislating immorality and attempting to reshape our country into a radically secularist nation without God. Thus our country's fundamental identity risks being lost. We must heed the warnings of our Founding Fathers that without the indispensable supports of religion and morality, our liberty will soon collapse. Faith in God and the observance of his Law is the foundation of our religious freedom as well as of all our other freedoms.

We should also gratefully recall the sacrifices of those who fought and gave their lives to defend the rights to life and religious freedom that we enjoy today. Their faith and courage should inspire us to continue praying and working for the end of legalized abortion, the repeal of the HHS mandate, and the defeat of radical secularism, so that this great nation will once again be "one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Happy Thanksgiving.