A Thankful Heart

The whole idea of giving thanks is one of the first concepts a parent passes along to the next generation. I can see it in my mind's eye, someone handing a toddler a cracker and the mother speaking to the child, reminding him or her, "What do you say?"

"Thank you," is the expected response, although often in beginning stages it's more, "Kank ooh." I'm loving that image.

An opinion, just because today is Thanksgiving and this is my blog: The whole idea of thanks has been misconstrued. Yes, we are to say thanks to others. That is basic, the cornerstone of civilization. Reading through my friends' posts on facebook, I can see that genteel side of being thankful.

But there is a deeper side of Thanksgiving that needs to be passed along to the next generation.

It is also necessary for me to give thanks to my creator, a basic tenet of my faith in a higher power. "Thank you, God," I say not nearly enough. The psalmist says it frequently. Thanks. Praise. Joy. One of the first psalms I memorized beyond the twenty-third was the hundredth, the one that starts out the way I remember, "Enter into his gates with Thanksgiving..." But there's more: "Give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever."

I'm learning to make posters like the one above, and I want to use this new skill to do good, to remind people of what life should be all about, to uplift and honor. I see that I should have capitalized the word "His," according to the grammar I learned in the old days when paying homage to God necessitated capital letters even on pronouns. Now God has no gender specific pronouns in many texts I read. Using that rule, I can rewrite: Give thanks to God and praise God's name, for the Lord is good and God's love endures forever. Either way, I'm still thankful to God for the blessings I've received.

I took the picture behind the quote specifically for this poster. It's a tray my mother gave me years ago, one I usually keep on my table the whole month of November. It reminds me of the joy of Thanksgiving and the closeness of family back when we could sit around the same table and linger over pumpkin pie and catch up on our latest doings. 

Those days are over. New groups surround the table now, yet no matter where I am, those I'm with give thanks to God and teach our younger ones to have a thankful heart. 

We are so blessed.

Indeed.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen