We are into the week of Thanksgiving now. It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year for several reasons.

I love to cook and this is the week I shine. I create a menu, make a shopping list, purchase the goodies, clean my house top to bottom, put up some Christmas decorations, set the table, begin prepping for the big day, and then Thanksgiving arrives.

I rise at the crack of dawn and begin the real task of the day…getting that meal started that will be enjoyed later in the day.

I set the big table in the dining room. My husband isn’t a big fan of this, so I only use my dining room table at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This year I also played around with creating a pretty menu to place on my fridge…it’s usually my hand scribbled notes and I cross off the items I have completed. But I wanted something a bit more special this year. Take a look at the pics…which do you prefer?

But here’s my one dilemma about Thanksgiving. There isn’t much music that is attached to the day. “Over the River and Through the Wood” is definitely one to use on this day, but there aren’t many recordings of this tune.

There are a few hymns that speak to Thanksgiving, but really not enough to even make an album. I wonder why this holiday isn’t as musically decorated as some of the others.

Maybe it’s because our hearts and thoughts are to be elsewhere. We are to be thanking God for all that He has done for us and for what He’s done in our lives. This is a day for our gratitude to create the music for us.

I did choose one hymn that’s been re-made to share today. “Come Thou Fount” was written in 1758 and it is a hymn with an abundance of things to be thankful for. Grace, mercy, redeeming love, help, good pleasure, safety, rescue, and goodness.

The songwriter is thankful for the gifts from above and desires to sing praise to God with his music. But then he asks for God’s work upon his life.

He asks for his heart to be in tune with God’s grace. He asks to be taught the music from above. He asks for God’s guidance and safety through travel. He asks that his heart be bound to God. He asks that God would take his heart and seal it. These are such wonderful words. All words and prayers that we can ask for ourselves.

The one section of this song that is probably most confusing is in the second verse. “Here I raise my Ebenezer.” What does that mean?

This idea is taken from 1 Samuel 7:12 (NIV). “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far has the Lord helped us.’” The word Ebenezer means “stone of help.” The author of this hymn raised his stone of help to God. He asked God to help him through each situation.

What a picture we see in these few words. Perhaps we need our own stone to raise when we need help. Of course, we could certainly just ask, but by raising a stone, we are doing something. We are reminded of something. We become engaged in the act of asking. I believe I will find my own stone and name it Ebenezer.

You’ll find the words to “Come Thou Fount” below and a link to listen to the updated version. I pray you will find this hymn will lead you to a life of thanksgiving.

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;

God of glory, voice of thunder
Split the cedars, bring us under
Oh the shadows of your wings
You give us strength
You give us peace

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.[i]

If you’d like to hear this version of this song, you can click here to listen to it.

I pray that you will have a blessed day and that you will be thankful for all that God has given.

Grace and peace be yours in abundance,

Donna

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