Come ye thankful people come…

Thanksgiving is still a month away, but for some reason as the strains of Classical music came from the radio early the other morning, I thought of the CD with Thanksgiving hymns my grandmother had given my family last autumn. The CD accompanied Barbara Rainey’s book Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember, and had a delightful collection of instrumental hymns with the theme of thanksgiving. My not-quite-awake husband was bewildered as to why that had crossed my mind at that particular moment, but I knew I’d have to ask my mom for the title so I could look for it.

A few hours later, however, Merritt pulled a book off the shelves of the Habitat for Humanity thrift store in our hometown. And there was the very book and CD I’d been thinking of that morning, just like new! I think sometimes the Lord arranges these little “coincidences” on purpose, just so we can delightedly thank Him at the finding.

Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember details the story of the first Thanksgiving, illustrated with beautiful photographs, and sprinkled with historical highlights. In between, you’ll find such bits of wisdom as this:

Being grateful is a choice. It’s not a feeling dependent on our circumstances, as we clearly see in the Pilgrims’ lives. They believed that God was in control—“Providence,” they called it. They responded to the circumstances of their lives with a perspective that said, “God has allowed this for our good.”

-Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember, by Barbara Rainey

So now I have our first Thanksgiving “coffee-table book,” and before Halloween has come and gone, the sacred tunes of another holiday, a truly holy day, are filling our home…

Now thank we all our God

With heart and soul and voices…