Thanksgiving Day is just around the corner. I really like Thanksgiving. I like it that people gather in the churches for a community Thanksgiving service. I like it that churches and community centers provide Thanksgiving dinner, giving people who might otherwise do without or eat alone, a meal and chance to socialize. Furthermore, I like the family togetherness that Thanksgiving Day encourages.

All of us Maxwells who can, gather at the farm for Thanksgiving Day. Roast turkey, baked ham, veggies and other goodies are the Thanksgiving fare. After a prayer of grace, we serve ourselves, sit down together and feast. The meal is concluded with a slice of pumpkin pie and coffee followed by a nap or a walk.

I’m glad Thanksgiving is a calendar day. It serves as a reminder to us of how fortunate we are and how grateful we should be. But you know, Thanksgiving should be more than a day. It should be a way of life. I suppose you could say that thanksgiving should be thanks living. Thanksgiving is an attitude of gratitude. It is not to receive things as though we’re owed them. Neither is it to envy what others have that we may lack, begrudge it, and covet it for ourselves. It is a “thank you” spoken or written in response to some act of kindness extended to us. And it should come naturally.

The Bible says, “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD….” (Psalm 92:1a, KJV). I have so much for which to thank the Lord, don’t you?! So this Thanksgiving let us together “…thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices, Who wondrous things has done, In whom this world rejoices; Who, from our mother’s arms, Hath blest us on our way with countless gifts of love, And still is our today.”

Happy Thanksgiving! Let’s enjoy it and determine to make it more than a day.