Remember Your Roots

 

Holiday Months Create a Break from Genealogy

CHRISTMAS 1957

Though I am addicted to family research, I am aware that at times we have to take a step back. The holiday months are hectic with all the trimmings that come with the season. My research has been intense with the Vineyard, Campbell lines. It takes up space in my mind and time to dig, compare, have all the screens open... searching for that small tidbit that could be the next steppingstone. 

I'm going to focus on Christmas Past and all the joys of the season. I also love the inspirational things that I have saved over the years to give me direction. So... for a while, I will share, old Christmas photos, devotionals, quotes, and just things that have given me my "bottom line" strength, things that reach down to my soul. 

I praise and thank God for my mother and daddy who taught me to stand firm, believe in Him and know that I am worthy and loved.

My family research is my escape...I often say that I enjoy my old ancestors more than I do the recent social medias with all the noise and chatter. My ancestors can't hide behind what isn't real. I learn valuable lessons from all of their experiences. This doesn't mean to say, that every now and then I may get sidetracked back to my first love and have to take a peek at genealogy.... but for now, I'll take a break and share some inspirational topics.

May We Always Be Thankful

 

My Commentary

And the tradition lives on…. until now, it seems. Today, it feels as if we skip our blessings that are given by God in order to focus on the commercialism of Christmas. It is no longer acceptable to voice our belief in the one almighty God who brought us to this day as a nation. Today Christians are BASHED for our beliefs and made to feel that we are racists and bigots which to me is the farthest thing from my thoughts. It's being thrust on us as we are being faced with the counterculture movement. We stand by and watch as our inherited culture in the United States is torn down by those who have no grounding in what our American culture is all about. What is being removed slowly will cause the demise of our democracy. This nation was founded on God, patriotism, and family….and within each of those, there is extreme decay.  The immigrants that are pouring over our borders have NO understanding what our culture is, nor do they have any family members that have sacrificed for our freedoms.  We must stand firm in our belief system of basic American principles.

Thanksgiving 1782-1863

 

1,200+ George Washington Illustrations, Royalty-Free Vector Graphics & Clip Art - iStock | George washington portrait, Abraham lincoln, Presidents day (istockphoto.com)

Thanksgiving Proclamations in the Early Republic

The Continental Congress issued several ‘national days of prayer, humiliation, and thanksgiving’... a practice continued by Washington and Adams under the constitution. This proclamation was published in “The Independent Gazetteer” on November 5, 1782.

“… Do hereby recommend it to the inhabitants of these States in general, to observe and request the several states to interpose their authority, in appointing and commanding the observation of THURSDAY the TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY OF NOVEMBER next as a day of SOLEMN THANKSGIVING to GOD for all His mercies; and they do further recommend to all ranks to testify their gratitude to God for His goodness by a cheerful obedience to His laws and by promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the practice of true and undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness…”

 November 26, 1789: George Washington Calls for Day of Thanksgiving

George Washington, now serving as the first President of the United States, took Congress’s recommendation to call for a National Day of Thanksgiving and prayer in gratitude for the end of the Revolutionary War. Washington observed the holiday by attending church and then donating money and food to prisoners and debtors in New York City jails.

 Presidents Washington, John Adams, James Madison renewed the tradition, followed by a campaign by Sara Hale in 1846 to make Thanksgiving a national holiday.

President Abraham Lincoln followed up during the Civil War celebrating National Thanksgiving Day on the final Thursday 26 Nov 1863 which was written up in a document by his Secretary of State William H. Seward. “…I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens…”

Thanksgiving 1775-1777

 

“First Thanksgiving at Plymouth” oil painting by Jennie A. Brownscombe, circa 1914

History of the First Thanksgiving - History of Massachusetts Blog

November 23, 1775 in the run up to the Revolutionary War, Boston patriots published an anti-British proclamation for a “Day of public Thanksgiving” throughout the Massachusetts Colony. “That such a Band of Union, founded upon the best Principles, unites the American Colonies; That our Rights and Privileges . . . are so far preserved to us, notwithstanding all the attempts of our barbarous Enemies to deprive us of them. And to offer up humble and fervent Prayers to Almighty GOD, for the whole British Empire; especially for the UNITED AMERICAN COLONIES."

 December 18, 1777: 13 Colonies Celebrate a Thanksgiving

To celebrate the victory of American Continental forces over the British in the Battle of Saratoga, commander-in-chief George Washington called for Thursday, December 18 to be set aside for “Solemn Thanksgiving and Praise.” It was the first time that all 13 colonies celebrated a day of thanksgiving in unison.

A True American Tradition - Thanksgiving

https://historyofmassachusetts.org

Thanksgiving is truly an American tradition. I was listening to a program last night, and it was brought to my attention how little our society today really knows about Thanksgiving and why we have this special day of thanks. It seems that most people feel it is for eating and watching football, which are all part of what we do today. The true reason for the holiday is rooted deep in American history and should not be forgotten by the American people. My people were well rooted in America when this Holdiay became a recognized as a National Day of Celebration.

I did some research using the two following sources: 
https://www.history.com/news/thanksgiving-timeline
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)

and here is what I found. 
There’s no holiday that’s more quintessentially American than Thanksgiving.

In 1541, the Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado accompanied by 1500 armored men left Mexico City and marched north in search of gold. They camped in Palo Duro Canyon and their priest Juan de Padilla called for a feast of prayer and thanksgiving.

In 1598, in a second Texas town a wealthy Spanish dignitary Juan de Oñate was granted land among the pueblo Indians as he blazed a path across the Chihuahau Desert. After 10 days of rest near San Elizario, Texas, Oñate ordered a feast of thanksgiving. "We built a great bonfire and roasted the meat and fish, and then all sat down to a repast the like of which we had never enjoyed before…We were happy that our trials were over; as happy as were the passengers in the Ark when they saw the dove returning with the olive branch in his beak, bringing tidings that the deluge had subsided."

In 1607, English colonists at Fort St. George assemble for a harvest feast and prayer meeting with the Abenaki Indians in Maine.

In 1621: The Plymouth Feast. Archive evidence comes from a letter from Plymouth colonist Edward Winslow that the colonists wanted to celebrate their first good crop of corn and barley grown with generous assistance from the native Wampanoag Indians. So the English colonists sent out four men to kill “as much fowl” as they could in one day, and invited King Massasoit and 90 of his men “so we might after a more special manner rejoice together.” The king brought five deer to the three-day party, which 19th-century New Englanders would later promote as the origin of modern Thanksgiving.

William Bradford, in “Of Plymouth Plantation” documents much about this harvest that became the first Thanksgiving.

  TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW.

The Ant and the Contact Lens

https://www.godvine.com/read/The-Ant-and-the-Contact-Lens-491.html

THE ANT AND THE CONTACT LENS

Elisabeth Elliot published the story above in her 1995 book, “Keep A Quiet Heart” (Servant Publications, Ann Arbor Michigan). She says the story is a first-person account given to her from Brenda Foltz of Princeton, Minnesota based on an event that occurred on her first rock-climbing experience.

           Brenda was a young woman who was invited to go rock climbing.  Although she was scared to death, she went with her group to a tremendous granite cliff.  In spite of her fear, she put on the gear, took a hold on the rope, and started up the face of that rock.

          Well, she got to a ledge where she could take a breather.  As she was hanging on there, the safety rope snapped against Brenda’s eye and knocked out her contact lens.  Here she was on a rock ledge, with hundreds of feet below her and hundreds of feet above her.  Of course, she looked and looked, hoping it had landed on the ledge, but it just wasn’t there.  Here she was, far from home, her sight now blurry.  She was desperate and began to get upset, so she prayed to the Lord to help her find it.  When she got to the top, a friend examined her eye and her clothing for the lens, but there was no contact lens to be found. 

          She sat down, despondent, with the rest of the party, waiting for the rest of them to make it up the face of the cliff.  She looked out across range after range of mountains, thinking of that Bible verse that says, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.”

          She thought, “Lord, You can see all these mountains.  You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is.  Please help me.”

          Finally, they walked down the trail to the bottom.  At the bottom there was a new party of climbers just starting up the face of the cliff.  One of them shouted out, “Hey, you guys!  Anybody lose a contact lens?”

          That would be startling enough, but you know why the climber saw it?  An ant was moving slowly across the face of the rock, carrying it.  Brenda told me that her father was a cartoonist.  When she told him the incredible story of the ant, the prayer, and the contact lens, he drew a picture of an ant lugging that contact lens with the words, “Lord, I don’t know why You want me to carry this thing.  I can’t eat it, and it’s awfully heavy.  But if this is what You want me to do, I’ll carry it for You.”

          It would do us good to occasionally say, “God, I don’t know why you want me to carry this load.  I can see no good in it and it’s awfully heavy.  But, if you want me to carry it, I will.”  God doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called.

          He is our source of existence and our Savior.  He keeps us functioning each and everyday.  Without Him, we are nothing, but with Him, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.  (Philippians 4:13)