A Thankful Heart

Many hearts will turn to Thanksgiving this coming week. What kind of memories do you have of Thanksgiving? A table laden with good food and lots of family sitting around the table? Little children running around playing with cousins? Your dad carving the turkey while mother mashes potatoes? A scurrying around to get everything on the table hot and delicious? That could be the “Norman Rockwell” picture of Thanksgiving Day. Maybe it is yours as well.

For me as a child, some Thanksgiving days were butcher days. I didn't really enjoy those kind of holidays but it taught me to be thankful for the meat that was provided for the winter. But there were those family times around the table with my aunt and uncle and others. My parents always invited a lonely old man they knew that would be without the blessing of home and family. That taught me a lot and helped me to see not everyone was as blessed as I was.

Then as an adult with a family of my own, we would go to my parents home for many years but occasionally they would come to our home for the holiday. After my dad died, we would bring mother to our home for a few days and also invite a few others to join us. Mother had taught me how to set a pretty table and I loved to do it. Themed napkins and jellied cranberry sauce, beautiful china and traditional pumpkin pie all helped make the meal festive.

But it is our heart attitude that really makes Thanksgiving Day special. We give thanks for our many blessings. Music always speaks to my heart and there are a few Thanksgiving hymns that are my favorites.

We Gather Together was originally a Dutch patriotic song, written around 1600 to celebrate the freedom of the Netherlands from Spanish rule. However, God's kingdom transcends national and ethnic boundaries. When the Church sings this hymn, she is reminded of the words of the apostle Paul: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places”, Ephesians 6:12 ESV. In singing this hymn the people of God seek His help and thank Him for His presence in the pursuit of victory over evil, for we know that God “forgets not His own.” (hymnary.org)  Listen HERE

For The Beauty of the Earth was written in 1863 by Folliott S. Pierpoint. He was wondering through the English countryside around the winding Avon River. As he looked on the beauty surrounding him, he was inspired to reflect on God's gifts to his people in creation and in the church. He thought of the sacrifice of Christ, in the greatest of sacrifices, that of his life in return for ours. The hymn was meant not only as a song of thanksgiving but as the only thing we could give Christ in return for his mercy and love; a hymn of praise laid upon the altar as a sacrifice. (hymnary.org)  Listen HERE

Come Ye Thankful People Come, was written by Henry Alford in 1844, in rural England when the life of the village during the winter depended on the bounty of the autumn harvest. While the first stanza of this hymn rejoices over the harvest, the last three expound on the reminder this image gives of the parable of the Wheat and the Weeds in Matthew 13. The hymn concludes with a prayer that the final harvest at His Second Coming would happen soon. (Hymnary.org) Listen HERE

Wonderful, Merciful, Savior* is probably not thought of as a thanksgiving hymn but I love these

words that give praise to a “lamb that could rescue the souls of men” and “offer hope when our hearts have hopelessly lost their way”. And in the chorus it speaks the words of my heart: “You are the One that we praise, You are the One we adore; You give us healing and grace our hearts always hunger for.” My heart is full of praise for my Savior, Jesus Christ. He has given me eternal life by dying on a cross; he has rescued me from a life of sin, he continually offers me hope when life situations cause me to be disheartened. And my heart lifts up praise to Him as the One that I praise and adore. I am so thankful!

*Written in 1989 by Dawn Rodgers and Eric Wyse   

Listen HERE