the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
I was excited! We had two days off from school and I was going to my Nana’s! I would be seeing all my cousin’s there and have lots of fun with them. Best of all, my Aunt’s would all bring their special recipes, the most wonderful foods ever! We had a fun celebration at school already. I was an Indian Princess and we had several more Indian’s and Pilgrim’s dressed in our construction paper hats that we made in art class. For all that my seven year old self knew, Thanksgiving was a celebration of the Indians and the pilgrims getting to know each other better, and sharing their cooking expertise with each other.
I had an eye opening experience that year at Nana’s. My Nana was a story teller. Not the false kind of story teller that 5 year olds get into trouble fo, but a real historical story teller! She wove her stories in such interesting patterns that the six of us grandchildren just sat quietly at her feet and listened.
She told us; “You see, we often paint this First Thanksgiving story as a bounty of food, a beautiful spread of food with plump pilgrims and serving their new Indian friends. Not quite accurate! You see in the fall of 1621 the Pilgrims had only been in the ‘new world’ less than a year. Within those six months, a full half of their original population died from disease-or starvation. They were not plump! When the Indians accepted the invitation to this First Thanksgiving’ is was not to try out new recipes, as the food was still scarce. They gathered to celebrate life with their new friends, the Indians, and to give thanks to God for His provision in difficult circumstances.”
My Nana had us feeling so badly for this group of people we did not even know, but we knew they had a great impact on our lives. Now, we still celebrate with food and friends, but, do we give the thanks for provision in difficult circumstances’ as we should be doing? This year especially, we need to thank Him for bringing us through a pandemic, a Presidential (un)election, bad weather in several areas in the US, fires in other areas.
Just so these thoughts would stick in our little heads, Nana had us write down one thing we were thankful for on a construction paper fruit we drew. We would place them in a basket on the table and talk about them during dessert.
May I suggest we take the next two weeks before Thanksgiving, then Thanksgiving Day, to do something to remember to be thankful to God for all his blessings and provision. The verse above is a good place to start. Maybe you will want to cut out a fruit, (or eat one) and talk about the goodness of God’s attributes.
Have a blessed Thanks Giving!
The recipe below may have been at the first Thanksgiving as the Wampanoag Native American Indians shared their food with the Pilgrims.
Nasaump (thick Native American porridge)
1 ½ cups cornmeal
1 cup berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, or a combination of all three)
½ cup crushed nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, or a combination of all three)
1 quart water
Maple syrup to taste
Combine the cornmeal, berries, crushed nuts, and maple syrup in a pot of water and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to medium and cook, stirring frequently for 15 minutes.
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