Commentary: Do You Realize How Blessed You Are?

Martha’s Poem this week is entitled “Be Happy”.  Do you know that “happiness” is a choice?  You make  in the order of 35,000 decisions each day.  Be happy or not is one of them.  Martha gives some insight into being happy. 

Being thankful is certainly one of the things that can increase happiness.  Of course this week is Thanksgiving week.

“On October 3, 1863, expressing gratitude for a pivotal Union Army victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln announces that the nation will celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday on November 26, 1863.

The speech, which was actually written by Secretary of State William Seward, declared that the fourth Thursday of every November thereafter would be considered an official U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. This announcement harkened back to when George Washington was in his first term as the first president in 1789 and the young American nation had only a few years earlier emerged from the American Revolution. At that time, George Washington called for an official celebratory “day of public thanksgiving and prayer.” While Congress overwhelmingly agreed to Washington’s suggestion, the holiday did not yet become an annual event. ” The author of Mary Had a Little Lamb lobbied for this to become a holiday.

My essay thisis a personal one without the usual citations.  It depicts some of the great blessings I have had—but with the purpose of getting you to think about the blessings God has bestowed upon you.

Did you know that the term “Eucharist” is from a Greek term that means “Thanksgiving”? Protestants use the term the “Lord’s Supper”.  “Supper” is the term used in describing it in 1. Cor.  The term of Thanksgiving is derived from the fact that Christ gave thanks before the cup of wine and before breaking the bread. 

We, of course, are thankful for Christ’s death, burial and resurrection as it is the hope of life for us.

Note: You might not have noticed but in Luke Christ blesses the wine “before” the meal and again “after” the meal.  You may have missed the fact that Christ did this over a meal and anticipates doing so again later.  I Cor. narrative is over a meal.  Meals were not abandoned until the 3rd century when meetings were in building and the wine and bread had become viewed as sacred elements.