Fruitful Fields and Healthful Skies

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I often say there is much more to a wellness lifestyle than maintaining a power pantry and great whole food choices. Thanksgiving is one of those attitudes and practices which brings depth to our wellness, and our American tradition of thanksgiving is a perfect opportunity for focus.

Without gratitude we are apt to think we are the source of all the goodness happening around us, like our relationships, the improvement in our health, maybe even a deep, abiding spiritual walk... The reality is that over years and decades, and by overlaying wisdom with our life experience, I think we can't help but give credit for all we have to a sovereign God who chooses to give us so much, and bless us in so many ways. Not only are we blessed beyond measure, but He chooses not to take us out for the craziness we collectively generate in world around us.

So I think it's fitting to reflect on one of the best Thanksgiving day writings ever: Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation 106, of 1863. Prior to that year, Thanksgiving was celebrated state-by-state or locally, but not on a national level. We have Lincoln to thank for uniting our thought behind gratitude as a nation, specifically on the fourth Thursday of November. Here are some of my favorite parts of this proclamation:

The year that is drawing toward 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 can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
...
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax 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.
...
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.

If you'd like to read Proclamation 106 in its entirety, you can find it here...

Happy Thanksgiving to you and those you love. Besides some great power pantry choices, I'll encourage you to take the few extra minutes for a gratitude break during the day. We are blessed in so many ways - well beyond our need, and definitely beyond our capacity to understand God's providence.

By the Way

Jen has been reading an incredibly inspiring daily devotional, based on a great gratitude book, One Thousand Gifts, A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, by Ann Voskamp. In it the author tells of taking on a friend's dare to count 1,000 things she loved. She took on the challenge and experienced more daily beauty and surprising wonder than she could ever have imagined. Her daily hunt for God's grace had ushered her into a fuller life...

Jen has taken this challenge as well and is now logging her first one thousand gifts. I think I might make the time in 2015 to start my own list as well...