The Pulpit Speaks: November 22, 1958

An article written by my father, the Rev. C. Thomas Paige, as it appeared in the Tri-State Defender on the date shown.

Once again our thoughts turn to Thanksgiving. Every year about this time we start thinking in terms of Thanksgiving. Much of our thinking is far from a positive approach but rather a negative one. To many of us, it is not a matter of being grateful, but being resentful. We look about us and observe the fate of our companions in these glorious times, with one eye upon them and their apparent prosperity and the other eye upon ourselves and our lowly conditions and the question arises: what? Here a life plagued with what? Here a life plagued with illness; here a life burdened with sadness; here a life minus the joy of friends and happiness; there lives filled with health, happiness, and friends. No wonder the weary cross-bearer cries out beneath his heavy load, “Thank God for what?”

Maybe in the very heat of this indecision one must rise up and realize that there is something for all of us to be adequately happy. Maybe sometime each of us needs to go off somewhere and count our blessings. Then we will realize that we are not nearly as bad off as we would like to make ourselves believe. Maybe it is our trial to go through life without eyes, or without ears, or without legs, or without well bodies. But over there, we can find someone who is just as bad off as we, but who has risen up to such a height that all about him forget his afflictions and think only of him.

There are those of us who look at great performers of our day and time and curse, because someone happened to have been given – as we see it – all of the talents, and we have none. One man is a great singer, another a great actor, another an outstanding physician. We could go on and on looking at the various blessings some have received, and, by some stroke of fate, we have been denied. Maybe, as we look at life, we can ask, “Thank God for what?”

Time and time again one wonders if physical, social or economic conditions will be the reason for the dogmatism expressed by so many these days. I hastily say NO. If we were the first people to endure some of the things that we are enduring then there would be basis for our dogmatism. But we are not the first, and there will be those who will be coming behind us who will have to face up to life and see the sun shining behind every cloud. We just cannot let hardships and heartaches set back or thwart our marching forward to a chosen goal.

Thank God for what? A long time ago, a little hunch-back Jew gave each of us the answer. He said, “thank God for His unspeakable gift.” Maybe having to live so many years with a hunch-back and having people watch and stare at him day in and day out was an ordeal, but an even greater ordeal was to see what this little hunch-back Jew was able to do in terms of making Christianity a universal religion and to make it appealing to people to whom it had no appeal in his time. When he looked back over such a life with all of its disadvantages and saw what he had been able to contribute to the cause of nobler living in this world, out of a heart of gratitude he spontaneously cried out, “thank God for His unspeakable gift!”

Paul was one of the greatest minds of his day. He had attended one of the great schools, he had been exposed to language after language. Yet when he thought of what Christ had meant to him, there was only one thing he could say: “thank God for His unspeakable gift!”

Maybe we should change that “unspeakable” to “undescribable” gift. Is it not this – the self same thing – that we could say concerning Jesus, when we who are normal look over our lives and see how Jesus has worked with us through our friends, our acquaintances, our enemies, our blessings, and our curses? All of us should join in on a great chorus with Paul and say, “Thank God for His unspeakable gift!”

No, this is not a time for grumbling. This is not a time for finding fault. We must turn once again to God and thank Him for His unspeakable gift.