My first Thanksgiving in Boston, I was an ocean away from my home. One of my managers at work invited me to join their family for Thanksgiving. While I gratefully accepted, I was also nervous. What if I didn’t get along with everyone?
My trepidations were laid to rest as soon as I entered their house. I wasn’t treated like a stranger. Instead, I was immediately embraced with utmost love and care. On the surface we didn’t have much in common, yet I felt at home.
The Bible lesson for Thanksgiving Day from the Christian Science Quarterly opens with, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation” (Psalms 68:19). This Psalm praises God for filling our lives with good, and this experience showed me that one way to tangibly feel God’s care is through the kindness of others.
In this lesson, a passage from Mary Baker Eddy’s “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” says, “Are we really grateful for the good already received? … Gratitude is much more than a verbal expression of thanks. Action expresses more gratitude than speech” (p. 3). And later we read, “To keep the commandments of our Master and follow his example, is our proper debt to him and the only worthy evidence of our gratitude for all that he has done” (Science and Health, p. 4).
When we think of gratitude this way, it expands to an act of love. The two great commandments that Jesus gave us are to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. It’s easy to cherish the good we’ve received, but gratitude to God also impels us to give.
Christian Science teaches us that God, Spirit, is one and All, the creator of every one of us, His wholly spiritual image. What a gift to realize that we are God’s reflection, divine Love’s children, receiving so much good from God, the sole source of good! As we understand this, it helps us express love toward others in ways that touch their hearts.
A simple act of gratitude can break the spell of feeling that we are distant from God. Before Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he gave thanks to God (see John 11:1-44). He said, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always.” This models for us that we can express gratitude not only for blessings already realized but also for future good. And not only for ourselves but also for others. Such grateful expectancy is the fruit of understanding that the source of all unchanging good is God.
So then, we shouldn’t just give thanks and call it a day. A simple act of kindness, especially when impelled by prayer, can show God’s love to another. Since that first Thanksgiving in Boston, I’ve kept an open door to those who need to feel that embrace – during Thanksgiving and beyond. As Jesus said, “Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). We can be grateful every day that goodness is within our grasp to experience and express.
Access the Bible lesson for Thanksgiving from the Christian Science Quarterly for free at biblelesson.com/thanksgiving. It’s available in English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.
