Quite a few years ago when our daughter was in first grade, the school administration put up images illustrating Thanksgiving drawn by the children for an open house.
That night turkeys, Indians and Pilgrims lined the halls. As my husband and I toured the school, we stopped at our daughter’s offering and told her how good it was— of course.
She peered at me with wide brown eyes. “My friend had to take down her picture and do it over.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Here it is.” Our daughter pointed to a drawing with a boat and some stick people standing around it. “She wrote something on it the first time?”
“Did she write over the picture?” I asked.
“No, she wrote here.” She pointed underneath the boat. “She said the Pilgrims gave thanks to God, and that’s not allowed.”
I wasn’t certain she said what she intended to. “You mean she wasn’t supposed to write on the drawing at all.”
“No, she can’t say the Pilgrims thanked God.”
I couldn't keep my mouth from gaping. “But that’s exactly what they did.”
History was re-written in the rooms behind those halls that Thanksgiving.
Every year on this holiday I remember the incident and think of the verse, “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24: 15A
As Pilgrims in a new world, let’s remember without God we would have nothing good in our lives and give thanks to Him. He is our one and only wellspring of everything big or small that makes life worth living and brings us joy.
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