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Count Your Blessings
Grab
Index cards
Markers
Scissors
Money
Car keys
Go
I’m sure at Thanksgiving you’re thankful for . . . pie! Take your daughter to a favorite restaurant and order a big slice for each of you. Cut twenty index cards in half to make forty smaller cards. Talk together and think of twenty people or things you are thankful for. Use markers to write down or draw a picture of each blessing on two of the cards, making twenty matching pairs. Shuffle the cards together and lay them facedown in rows on the table. Take turns flipping two cards over at a time as you play Thanksgiving Memory. If the cards you pick up don’t match, place them facedown again. When one of you picks up two cards that match, keep the pair and set them to the side. When all of the cards have been matched, see who has collected the most pairs!
Grow
Thanksgiving is a fantastic holiday because it’s simple: family, food, and football. What could be better for our spirits than taking a day to remember how blessed we are? You probably could have filled stacks and stacks of index cards with things to be thankful for.
When we take the time to remember how good our God really is, we’re following the example of believers through all of history (even before the Pilgrims!). Read these verses together:
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever. (Ps. 118:29)
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name. (Heb. 13:15)
Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations. (Ps. 100)
Your gifts to us are too many to count. Give us thankful hearts that never stop praising you! Please help us to make every day a Thanksgiving Day, for you are good and your love endures forever! Amen.