Today is Monday, November 21st, 2005; Karen's Korner #676

I wrote this Karen's Korner several weeks ago. I thought that it would be either Wednesday's or Thursday's writing. But this morning, I decided it would be a good one to kick off Thanksgiving week.
 
 
When we traveled to Canada in the early part of October, we attended the Kanata Wesleyan Church on the outskirts of Ottawa. It was Sunday, October 9. Canadian Thanksgiving was the next day:  Monday, October 10.
 
While we sometimes regret that Thanksgiving is nearly overlooked on our scurring toward Christmas here in the United States, the Canadians tend to overlook their Thanksgiving holiday even more so.
 
The church's minister Rev. Sumners had as his sermon that October Sunday "The Forgotten Holiday" and talked about how easy it is to not take time to be thankful for all the many things that God has given to us and to say "thanks". Because he had been a minister in Florida for a few years prior to moving to Canada, he had quite an American influence.
 
He reminded the congregation that we don't have to only have things we like going on in our lives to be thankful. We adopted Thanksgiving as a national holiday at the urging of President Abraham Lincoln in 1863...in the darkest days of the Civil War.
 
Rev. Sumners used as our sermon text that Sunday, Habakkuk 3:17 - 19: 
 
"Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines;
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls--
 
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will joy in the God of my salvation."
 
 
His message theme:  we may not be able to control what happens to us in our daily lives; but we can choose whether to be thankful or not. 

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