Thanksgiving

Two words can wonderfully and powerfully change your life.  Two words can change your perspective and touch lives around you with love and joy.  What are those two words? -- Thank you!  Learning to thank God and others is one of the great keys to a happy life and a hallmark of a life of greatness. There is no better time of the year to make a change in your outlook on life or renew your focus on gratitude.  Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday to be with family and friends, to enjoy a great meal and spend quality time together, but it is also a time to renew a spirit of thankfulness.  Thanksgiving reminds us that one of the great secrets in life is living with an attitude of gratitude.  Early pilgrims faced a grueling winter their first year in America enduring a harsh New England winter and the loss of many family and friends, yet chose to continue to have a deep faith in God and an attitude of gratitude.  In the spring their new Native American friends showed them how to plant corn with a more plentiful harvest.  That first harvest they reached out with an attitude of thankfulness and invited these new friends to a wonderful feast of thanksgiving celebrating God’s goodness and provision. Living with an attitude of gratitude is more than a once a year thing, it is learning to focus on the things for which we have to be thankful each and every day, and allowing that attitude of gratitude to touch the heart and lives of those around us.  We all have so much to be thankful for: gifts and talents, friends and family, seasons of the year and seasons of life…Take a moment to say two words that can rekindle your joy for living and brighten someone’s day--thank you!…And take a moment to say thank you to God. . . Whatever your circumstances know that God loves you and God is there to see you through. Take a moment each day to say thank you to God.  You will discover a deeper power and greater joy in your life!  Surrounded by the cold, dark walls of an ancient Roman prison, the Apostle Paul writes these surprising words of encouragement to people undergoing adversity and persecution: 
 
(Verse of the week)
Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus. (1Thessalonians 5.18)
 
Wishing you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving!
--Pastor TJ
 
 (Prayer of the week)
Gracious and loving God, thank you for the many blessings with which you have touched my life.  Thank you for the challenges of life that shape and strengthen me.  Give me faith to trust in your plan and your strength.    Mold me and make me that others may see your true reflection in me.  Most of all may I experience your great love anew every day.   May I be joyful in all things, and may I treat others with love that they may see the light of your love in me.    Amen.
 
(quote of the week)
Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulty.  Happiness cannot come from without.  It must come from within.—Helen Keller
 
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