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Giving of Thanks
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Poems, Scriptures, and Quotes About Thanksgiving
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A THANKSGIVING MIRACLE
This news story was published on the front page of our local Times Union this week:
NEW SCOTLAND – a New Scotland man and his two daughters escaped with scrapes and bruises after their SUV was hit by two freight trains Saturday morning.Peter Salerno, 38, credits God with inspiring him to grab his 11- and 8-year-old daughters out of their seats and shielding them with his body after he discovered he was trapped in his vehicle as the second train bore down on them. "I normally wouldn't have the presence of mind to do that," said Salerno, who works for National Grid. "I just credit God Almighty himself with telling me to grab the girls. After the second train hit, I looked back at where Sydney was sitting and it was just gone." Police said they were stunned that the three members of the Salerno family walked away from the wreck, which obliterated a 2001 Land Rover Discovery SUV. Around 9:45 a.m., Salerno put two of his daughters, Kelly, 11, and Sydney, 8, into the SUV. The trio were on their way to Bleecker Stadium to watch Kelly and her cheerleading squad perform at a Pop Warner League football game. The train crossing is about 200 feet from the end of their driveway and is on top of a steep hill. It is marked only with a white, x-shaped sign. There are no lights or automatic gates, and neighborhood residents must listen for train whistles and crane their necks to make sure it is safe to go. "I looked to the left and saw a train way down, and he looked like he was barely moving," said Salerno. He crossed the first set of tracks and looked to the right to check for a train on the westbound set of tracks. "I looked and looked again and didn't see anything. When I got onto the tracks I looked and he was right there." He hadn't heard a train whistle. The westbound train hit the SUV in the front end on the passenger side, and sent the vehicle spiraling onto the other set of tracks, the one on which Salerno had already seen a train. "I looked out the window and the front end of the car was gone so I knew it wouldn't start. The doors wouldn't open either." He explained to the girls that they had been hit by a train, and he apologized. He tried his door and found it wouldn't open. Neither would any of the other doors. They were trapped. The second train was getting closer. "I said, "Girls, I am so sorry, but we're going to be hit again." He estimates he had 20 seconds to watch the train approach. In that time, Salerno, who is broad-shouldered and muscular, grabbed one daughter with each arm and pulled them into the driver's seat with him. "I just grabbed them without undoing their seatbelts," he said. "I tried to shield them and then just hugged the driver side door." All three Salernos said they remembered the atmosphere feeling eerily silent. Then, Kelly looked to her right and saw her entire field of vision filled by the engine of the second freight train. There was the sound of glass shattering, and the squealing of a train's brakes. The car was pushed off the tracks, and everything was once again very silent."I said, "Girls, can you move your hands and feet? I had blood running down my forehead and that was upsetting them, so I wiped it away. Where the back seat was just looked like an archway, so we crawled out." The front passenger side door was pushed almost entirely into the passenger seat, where Kelly had been sitting. By this time, Salerno's other children, Adam, 13, and Emily, 12, had run out of the house because they heard the crash. "I saw the car and I thought they were dead," said Adam, who called 911. Albany County Sheriff James Campbell said he was stunned that there were any survivors after he saw the remains of the vehicle. "This is my 43rd year doing this and I have never seen anyone walk away from something like this," Campbell said. "This family has a lot to be thankful for at Thanksgiving."
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The Weaver
My life is but a weaving
Between my Lord and me;
I cannot choose the colors
He worketh steadily
Oftimes he weaveth sorrow
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper,
And I, the underside.
Not till the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver's skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.
Author unknown
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THE ORIGIN OF OUR THANKSGIVING NATIONAL HOLIDAY
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[From ChristianAnswers.net]
Following is the 1863 Lincoln Presidential Proclamation - celebrated shortly after Lincoln committed his life to Christ and celebrated while America was still in the midst of its Civil War. It was this proclamation which eventually led to the establishment of our national Thanksgiving holiday.
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years 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 extaordinary a nature that they can not 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 unequaled 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 theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax 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 theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, 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.
In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
[Signed]
A. Lincoln
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