God Bless You and Your Thanksgivings

A Message from Pastor Dave
​
Thank you God for the cosmos and all colors. Thank you God for pumpkins, pecans, potatoes (sweet) and all the delicious foods of this season. Thank you God for the farmers and gardens, the soil and harvesters, bakers and cooks and for daily bread. Thank you God for grandma’s recipes. Thank you God for family and faith, freedom and friendships. Thank you God for words and wonders, water and thunder, the seen and unseen. Thank you God for birth and baptism; for voices of laughter and hearts of love and hands of labor. Thank you God for treasures and genes, music and mercy, St. Mark’s and all saints. Thank you God for my dad’s birth on this day. Thank you God for those who serve and for first responders and Psalm 23. Thank you God for trees and shelter, home and homecomings. Thank you God for your most gracious gifts and forgiveness of our sins and Jesus, Savior, Emmanuel and the Holy Spirit. – Pastor Dave (2021)

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:4-7
To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything. - Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude (1956)

Continue / To let gratitude be the pillow / Upon which you kneel to / Say your nightly prayer / And let faith be the bridge / You build to overcome evil / And welcome good
- Maya Angelou, “Continue” (2016)

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. - Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go: Daily Meditations for Codependents (1990)

O my God, let me, with thanksgiving, remember, and confess unto Thee Thy mercies on me. - St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions (c. 397-400)

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom He has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. - Psalm 107:1-3

15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’[f] feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” - Luke 17

I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have graciously kept me this day; and I pray that You would forgive me all my sins where I have done wrong, and graciously keep me this night. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen. - Martin Luther