I am thankful that I live in a country where it is still a God-given right to speak freely, worship openly, and gather peacefully.

I am thankful that I live in a country where we still have the right to bear arms in order to protect the rights of the people from the federal government.

And the local government, too.

I am thankful I have a church family that loves me, and that I love – for fellowship, for worship, for prayer, there is nothing like two or three gathered in His name.

I am thankful for the friends I have – the ones I’ve been blessed to meet, the ones I am looking forward to meeting – and especially the ones that have stuck by me through thick and thin.

I am thankful that God has blessed me with a beautiful, loving wife and a precocious daughter. And the patience and wisdom to deal with them both.

I am thankful I have a group of readers who will see this, and think of their blessings and count what they are thankful for.

Have a Happy, safe, and blessed Thanksgiving celebration, ya’ll.

Chat ya later…

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

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Don’t overeat. Don’t pass up the pie, either.

I give thanks I am around every day, even if I don’t post about it.

I will be spending the day first with the Cartter family in Tucson, honoring our mother’s request for a family picnic in her memory. Then, I will be joining the church family for another meal and more sharing time.

Ya’ll be careful. If you are driving, watch out for the other guy. He’s probably not paying attention to the road, and one of you ought to be.

Chat ya later…

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I was going to post a letter from “President Obama” that I received as a result of using the Democratic partys’ mass-mailing site (by the way – it didn’t work. none of the papers published my letter. i wonder why not?) and my reply, but then I thought to myself “Self, why be such a downer? God is on His throne, the sun is shining, and it is a beautiful day!”

So instead I leave you with this prayer:

Lord, Thank You for your everlasting Love, Your everlasting Grace, and Your everlasting Peace. Thank You for the blessings we have received, and the blessings You have planned for us, Your humble servants. Thank You for taking pity on us, and most of all, Lord, Thank You for Your Son. Amen.

…to one and all. A special THANK YOU to the people willing to serve this country who enable us to sit around and give thanks in the safety of our own home.

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 foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, 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 theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, 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 battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness 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 one 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 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, October 3, 1863, Washington, D.C.

Interesting side note: Lincoln dated this proclamation as “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 Unites States the Eighty-eighth.” (emphasis mine)

May you have a blessed day.

And, if the wish that you have a blessed day offends you, grow up. The world does not revolve around you.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!