11/23/06 Special Grif.Net - Thanksgiving in Everything
Dr Bob Griffin
.... the Gov/r and cheefe of them, seeing so many dye, and fall downe sick
dayly, thought it no wisdom to send away the ship...."
Capt. Miles Standish had been much at his wife Rose's bedside. As much time,
that is, as he could spare from stalking game, guarding against savages, and
felling trees to construct crude homes on shore.
A bitter wind whistled through chinks and cracks in the Mayflower, anchored
in Plymouth harbor that winter of 1620-21. Rose's chills would turn to
uncontrollable shaking. Then just as suddenly, her body would be ablaze with
fever. Herbs from the surgeon's chest did little to relieve her. By spring
only five wives remained out of the eighteen who had sailed to Plymouth.
Rose was not among them.
Thanksgiving? What was that? The golden dreams of a New World that Miles and
Rose had cherished together had evaporated into hollow hopes. And yet that
fall Capt. Standish joined other bereaved Pilgrims in the first Thanksgiving
celebration.
The real test of thankfulness is whether we can give thanks from the heart
for what we do have, despite the wounds and pains of yesterday's struggles.
Ours is not some fair-weather faith, but a resilient trust in the midst of
pain. The Pilgrims lived close to the edge of survival. Perhaps that is why
they were so thankful.
~~
Dr Bob, www.grif.net
1 cross + 3 nails = 4 given