How to Wake Up Happier Every DaySample

The year was 1623, three years after the Pilgrims arrived in the New World. When they landed, they did not experience immediate prosperity. In fact, they had an awfully hard time. Yet despite the hardship, the governor of the Plymouth Colony, William Bradford, made the following proclamation:

“To all ye pilgrims, inasmuch as the Great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forest to abound with game, and the sea with fish and clams; insomuch as He has protected us from the raids of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now I, your magistrate, do proclaim, that all ye pilgrims, with ye wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of nine and twelve in the daytime on Thursday, November ye twenty-ninth, of the year one thousand six hundred and twenty three, and the third year since ye pilgrims landed on ye Plymouth Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.”

That is quite a proclamation. That is our heritage as Americans. We are a country that historically has stopped to thank Almighty God for His blessings. 

Now, in modern times, most of us will not be in church on Thanksgiving Day. However, let’s not allow that to prevent us from taking time to really think about what God has done. Pause the big game. Call the kids in from the yard. Let the turkey and potatoes cool for a few minutes. Give thanks unto His name.