Thanksgiving ~ a time for giving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! Really, it’s unbeatable: family time, great food, a 4-day weekend and football – nothing wrong with that! However, if that’s all we focus on, we are missing the point.

We all learned the story of the first Thanksgiving early in our lives. Stories of the Pilgrims giving thanks to God, and of the Native Americans providing help and sustenance to them to get through the winter are indelibly etched in our minds. Thanksgiving Day is also a deeply significant part of our national experience. George Washington was the first President to declare a Thanksgiving holiday; Abraham Lincoln declared that Thanksgiving would fall on the last Thursday of November; and Franklin Roosevelt signed legislation making the fourth Thursday of November the national holiday that we celebrate today.

However, if we make this great holiday centered around only our enjoyment, we will miss its greatest blessing – the blessing of giving to others. The Bible tells us that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and Thanksgiving is a great day to model that verse. Further, by doing so we will have that blessing multiplied to others and back to us.

More than thirty years ago, I started a law firm with my friend and law partner, Kevin McGinnis. We have always tried to incorporate giving into the fabric of our law firm, and several years ago our firm, Liechty, McGinnis, Berryman & Bowen, began supporting Rockwall County Helping Hands in its distribution of Thanksgiving baskets.

This year our firm was able to continue providing funds for the Thanksgiving Food Baskets, and Mary and I also volunteered in the Paul and Jean Liechty Food Pantry. We not only distributed food to friends and neighbors who came to receive help for the holiday, but also sorted food, received food donated to Helping Hands by others, filled the freezer and worked with others who volunteered their time to serve.

By participating in this way, Mary and I were blessed. When we finished our volunteer shift, we felt the blessing you get from supporting others, and had a renewed desire to continue supporting Helping Hands to fulfill its mission that “no one goes to bed hungry in Rockwall County”.

Rockwall County is a wonderful place to live. We are a community filled with people who freely give to others, and with organizations dedicated to serving others in our community. This Thanksgiving Day, I would encourage everyone in Rockwall County to renew your commitment to serving others in our community. If you have an organization you support, choose to renew your support in the future. If you currently don’t have a group you work with, find an organization that has a service mission you agree with, and make a decision to serve others by supporting that organization. By doing so, each of us will realize the truth of the Scripture – it truly is more blessed to give than to receive!