You know the picture in our minds we all get of the Indian brave who walked into the Pilgrim village in the spring of 1621 to show the Pilgrims how to plant corn, and beans, and pumpkin? Wasn’t his name Squanto? Or didn’t anyone ever tell you about Squanto?
Many are attempting to erase our history of all the bad that has happened, but with each bad event that is erased so are the great things God has done with man’s bad intentions. After first grade, 1961 I don’t remember ever hearing the name Squanto again. I don’t remember what was said about him when I was only 6. I had raised children and taught school for years, and Squanto’s name never crossed my mind again until I ran across this picture book Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas.
A Thanksgiving tale of the Indian who greeted the Pilgrims with an English “Welcome” and then taught them to plant corn and fish, always seemed to me to be just that – a tale, until I learned how God brought it all about .
A slave ship sailed along a shore, kidnapping young boys and taking them back to Spain; an entire tribe wiped out by disease; a lone man given his freedom returning from Europe to find no one left. There’s far more to the truth than meets the eye here. God is always taking the evil of man’s devices and turning them into good for those who love him. The slave traders of Europe had meant it for evil against the Indians. They cared only for their pocketbooks but God used the terrible situation for good. The people who came seeking to worship Him in a new land were starving and fearful of the Indians surrounding them. They needed someone who could help and someone they could understand. God placed Squanto there, the Indian once captured and sold as a slave willing to help the starving Pilgrims.
In the Bible Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. They thought he probably died in Egypt until they went there to buy food. Who should they find to provide for them, but their own brother, in control of all the food of Egypt? Joseph’s brothers meant it for evil against Joseph, but God had used it for good.
Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. ~Genesis 50:19,20.
Confusion and mistrust surround us on every hand, but God has not left us alone. He is working all things for our good (Romans 8:28).
This Thanksgiving I want to commit to pray for our nation and our leaders. Pray for wisdom as Christians. Help wherever I can. I don’t want to be afraid, because God is with us through every circumstance working all things for our good.
I want to contemplate what circumstances I have experienced that seemed evil but God used for good.
Blessings for Thanksgiving and the coming year, Gail Cartee
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