It’s the season of thankfulness, giving, helping in soup kitchens, adopting families, frying turkeys, making Christmas yummies, visiting Santa, and so much more. One of the greatest attributes of Americans is our love of giving, and not just during the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. We have always been a country that gives and for that I am proud. Giving puts us at our best and rejuvenates humanity.
It’s also the season of shopping. Finding the perfect gift for each person can be complicated. Black Friday – busy malls – online – packages…
Here are a few things you can give that won’t cost you anything but could change your or someone else’s life.
Understanding.
Yesterday I was waiting to check out at Walmart. Two ladies in front of me had 2 buggies full of toys to donate to the Toys for Tots drive. In front of them was a sweet older gentleman with batteries in his hand. In front of him, was a middle-aged woman who for whatever reason was having an issue with her debit/credit card. Embarrassed, the woman was trying to remove items to get to the point where the transaction would go through. I felt the tension mounting in the 2 ladies in front of me who prior to the issue had been full of Christmas cheer, telling me all that they were doing in this season of giving. “Honestly, this is ridiculous. Can you deal with her later? We’ve got to get this to the school before 3:00,” one of them said to the cashier. And the two started. There wasn’t time. People need to manage their money better. You’re holding up the line, etc.
The cashier picked up an item that might help lower the cost to which the woman with tears in her eyes explained, “No. That’s for my son. I have to mail it today. He’s overseas. Military.” The gentleman behind her with the batteries simply walked forward, scanned his card, and whispered, “Merry Christmas.”
The woman, overwhelmed by his kindness, quietly thanked him. “My pleasure,” he said. When she left, he turned to the two women behind him with the buggy of toys, “There’d be no toys to give and no purpose to give them if not for the sacrifice of that woman and her son. I hope you make your deadline.”
If we act out when others need our support, what good are we? What is the point of giving if we can’t behave in line at Walmart? The greatest gift we can give is understanding. George Washington Carver stated, “How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these. ”
For – Giving.
It is the season for giving – yes – but also forgiving. Bitterness dwells in the hearts of so many of us and once rooted sprouts and spreads to every part of our being. Often we remark, “I can’t forgive them. They’ve just done too much damage.” You are right. They have. And continue to do so until you let it go and move on. I received a letter via email recently from a woman who had done something against me years ago. I remember thinking when I started reading the email, “Who is this?” As I read the words, the feelings of hurt and pain came back to me. I did remember what she had done but Praise God I had forgiven her long ago to the point that initially I didn’t even remember who she was.
Forgiveness is not for the person who harmed us. It is for us – to prevent clogging of the arteries around the heart, and I don’t mean plaque.
Smiling
There is a quote, “Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” Smiles do so much for humanity. They are non-threatening ways to communicate with others. They demonstrate acceptance, compassion, and understanding. As you shop, work, go to school functions, parties, and church, take the time to smile at people. One smile can change a person’s day. One smile can give hope to someone. Smile even if it is the last thing you want to do.
Speaking
Saying ‘thank you” is one of the greatest gifts you can give someone. Write a letter. Give him or her a call. But take the time to let someone know he or she is valuable in your life. Tell them how much you appreciate who he or she is. Life happens in fast motion. All too soon, what we should have said to someone, we don’t say and then it is too late.
Spending Time
This one goes without explanation. Time is the most valuable asset you can give. Take the time to listen, to laugh, to love, to celebrate, to remember, to cherish, and to appreciate. It is our greatest commodity.
Happy Thanksgiving to all our Now Habersham readers.
JFK’s Thanksgiving wish: Be ‘humbly grateful’ for what brings us together
On Nov. 4, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed this Thanksgiving proclamation. Little more than two weeks later, on Nov. 22, 1963, he lost his life to an assassin’s bullet during a trip to Dallas, Texas. America is as divided as it has been lately and Kennedy’s wish that the nation unite around its shared ideals seems more important than ever.
We hope you take time this season to give thanks for all that’s around you and offer a hand up to those who need it.
Over three centuries ago, our forefathers in Virginia and in Massachusetts, far from home in a lonely wilderness, set aside a time of thanksgiving. On the appointed day, they gave reverent thanks for their safety, for the health of their children, for the fertility of their fields, for the love which bound them together and for the faith which united them with their God.
So too when the colonies achieved their independence, our first President in the first year of his first Administration proclaimed November 26, 1789, as “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God” and called upon the people of the new republic to “beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions… to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue . . . and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.”
And so too, in the midst of America’s tragic civil war, President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November 1863 as a day to renew our gratitude for America’s “fruitful fields,” for our “national strength and vigor,” and for all our “singular deliverances and blessings.”
Much time has passed since the first colonists came to rocky shores and dark forests of an unknown continent, much time since President Washington led a young people into the experience of nationhood, much time since President Lincoln saw the American nation through the ordeal of fraternal war–and in these years our population, our plenty and our power have all grown apace. Today we are a nation of nearly two hundred million souls, stretching from coast to coast, on into the Pacific and north toward the Arctic, a nation enjoying the fruits of an ever-expanding agriculture and industry and achieving standards of living unknown in previous history. We give our humble thanks for this.
Yet, as our power has grown, so has our peril. Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers–for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.
Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings–let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals–and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.
Now, Therefore, I, John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America, in consonance with the joint resolution of the Congress approved December 26, 1941, 55 Stat. 862 (5 U.S.C. 87b), designating the fourth Thursday of November in each year as Thanksgiving Day, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 28, 1963, as a day of national thanksgiving.
On that day let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes blessed by family affection to express our gratitude for the glorious gifts of God; and let us earnestly and humbly pray that He will continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished tasks of achieving peace, justice, and understanding among all men and nations and of ending misery and suffering wherever they exist.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.
DONE at the City of Washington this fourth day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-eighth.