Being Grateful 

When I think of Thanksgiving, it is a special day that often brings my thoughts to my sister, Mary. As many of you know, Mary passed away almost two years ago, at the age of 38, after succumbing to the ravages of a cancerous brain tumor. But she loved Thanksgiving. It seemed the last Thursday in November was a day she enjoyed preparing for and participating in.
 
Mary, even as a young girl, was the one who liked to make the name cards and tell people where to sit at the Thanksgiving table. She was the artistic one who wanted the table beautiful and the food tasting great, but with wonderful presentation.
 
Mary instituted the Five Kernels of Corn experience in our family as part of our Thanksgiving celebration. Five kernels of corn at each place setting (harvest corn kernels, of course, to make the table more colorful!), representing why we were celebrating the day. You may have done this as well, but part of our tradition was to go around the table and have each kernel represent something we were thankful for. It meant each person would have to share five different expressions of gratitude! It certainly raised the thankfulness quotient, but also centered the feast on God's faithfulness and blessing to us.
 
Years later I came across a story of this tradition at Thanksgiving and want to share it with you:
 
In early New England, it was the custom at Thanksgiving time to place five kernels of corn at every plate as a reminder of those stern days in the first winter when the food of the Pilgrims was so depleted that only five kernels of corn were rationed to each individual at a time. The Pilgrim Fathers wanted their children to remember the sacrifice, sufferings, and hardships through which they had safely passed - a fitting hardship that made possible the settlement of a free people in a free land. They wanted to keep alive the memory of that sixty-three day trip taken in the tiny Mayflower. They desired to keep alive the thought of that stern and rockbound coast, its inhospitable welcome, and the first terrible winter which took such a toll of lives.
 
They did not want their descendants to forget that on the day in which their ration was reduced to five kernels of corn, only seven healthy colonists remained to nurse the sick, and nearly half their members lay in the windswept graveyard on the hill. They did not want to forget that when the Mayflower sailed back to England in the spring, only the sailors were aboard.
 
The use of five kernels of corn placed by each plate was a fitting reminder of a heroic past. Symbolically, it may still serve as a useful means of recalling those great gifts for which we are grateful to God.  (Bliss Forbush)
 
I hope and pray that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving; that it would be a day of recollection and remembrance of the many gifts that God has given to each of us. May it be an enjoyable celebration with family, a time of laughter and good food with people we love, but especially may you be reminded and focused on the Lord who loves us, blesses us, and is so deserving of our gratitude!
 
                       I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart;
                                              I will tell of all your wonders.
                                         I will be glad and rejoice in you;
                                 I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
                                                                       (Psalm 9:1-2)

Together in the Cause