~ written by Connie Dunmyer
The Monday before Thanksgiving has a way of creeping up on us. The house is busy, the schedule is full, and our minds are juggling everything from pie crusts to travel plans — sometimes with more stress than gratitude.
Or perhaps you’ve already mentally hopped over Thanksgiving and are halfway into Christmas mode.
Wherever you are today, I want to gently call you back. Back to stillness. Back to perspective. Back to the simple, steady practice of giving thanks. Back to gratitude.
The reflections below — an anonymous poem, a presidential proclamation, and a teacher’s prayer — offer a kind of reset for the soul. They can give us pause in the midst of clamor. They remind us why this week matters at all.
Count Your Blessings ~ by Anonymous
Count your blessings instead of your crosses;
Count your gains instead of your losses.
Count your joys instead of your woes;
Count your friends instead of your foes.
Count your smiles instead of your tears;
Count your courage instead of your fears.
Count your full years instead of your lean;
Count your kind deeds instead of your mean.
Count your health instead of your wealth;
Count on God instead of yourself.
There were many national proclamations for giving thanks. But it wasn’t until Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation of 1863, that Thanksgiving took hold in these United States of America. It’s important to note that we were literally in the middle of our nation’s Civil War at the making of this proclamation. Read these words from our 16th President, and let's try to apply them to our own mental and physical "civil wars".
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. 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. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
And finally, I have one last prose, by Gerard E. Frost, who was a Bible teacher and seminary professor. If you can find nothing else to give thanks for this week, I encourage you to read his final line over and over until you do.
“Let Us Give Thanks” by Gerhard E. Frost
Let us give thanks this moment:
for the sturdy fact of God’s continuing love,
for mercies which go before us and follow after us,
for those free gifts which cost God so much.
Let us give thanks: for memory and expectation,
for the good that we have known
and know today in Jesus Christ,
for the Spirit’s brooding presence in our nights and our days.
Let us give thanks: for pleasures which comfort
and pains which force our growth
and keep us at the Shepherd’s side,
for deep meanings revealed and mysteries mercifully concealed,
for the image of God within us, the capacity to inquire and adore.
Let us give thanks for one another,
for just being together,
for differences that complement and complete,
for gifts which enrich and disagreements which challenge,
for our oneness in Christ.
Let us give thanks for melody and mirth,
for rhythm and beat, for the repeated and the common,
for the ever-unfolding, and for senses with which to respond.
And let us give thanks for Someone to thank.
If you only skimmed through these words because you’re running on empty, I understand. But I encourage you to stop for a moment — right now. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Let the weight of your to-do list slip to the side. Then go back and read these reflections again.
They matter. They're not mine, but they call your spirit — and mine — back to what is eternal. Back to what will outlast every turkey, every pie, and every missing can of cranberry sauce.
"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." ~ Matthew 6:33-34.
May this Thanksgiving become more than a day on the calendar. May it become the well from which our joy, kindness, generosity, and worship flow into Christmas and the coming New Year.
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© 2025: Connie F. Dunmyer, All Rights Reserved.