Celebrating the Thanksgiving melting pot

If everyone in your great-grandparents or grandparents’ families could join you for Thanksgiving dinner, how many, and who, would be sitting at your table? If my extended family met to humbly thank God for His provisions this Thursday, we would definitely be an example of America’s “melting pot.”
My mother’s grandparents, none of whom Mom met, were Swedish. They never visited their daughter and her family in America and by the time Mom and her sisters went to Sweden, their living relatives were mostly cousins.
Perhaps my great-grandparents skipped the trip to America because of the Titanic disaster. After all, my grandparents had hoped to sail on that ship, but in the end, decided to save money by coming across in the steerage of a much less elaborate ship.
As my grandparents left Sweden, they and their loved ones knew they were not likely to see each other on earth again. The year, of course, was 1912.
Soon they rented a Kansas farm in the midst of Swedish immigrants. My mother, born in 1913, and her other five siblings were all American citizens at birth.  Of my grandparents seven children, only four married, and none of them married Swedes.
My mother married my father, whose family background was English, Scottish and Irish.
Dad’s paternal grandparents came from England about the time the U.S. dealt with states rights and the realization that all races deserved dignity.
My dad’s grandfather lost his life in that war.
My great-grandmother eventually married another Englishman. That family’s love of England was apparent for much of the next century.
Dad’s maternal grandparents came from Scotland. After a temporary stop in Canada, 13 little Campbells romped on the Kansas prairie homestead and filled a couple pews in the Presbyterian Church they helped start.
Dad’s English father and Scottish mother married and had seven children. Five married and raised families.
Dad used to say he “crossed the line” when he drove his Star from the English-speaking farming community to court Mom in her Swedish community. Her mother never learned English and her father often lapsed back into his native tongue. We grandchildren could not hold a conversation with our grandmother.
If my first cousins and their spouses, my siblings and their spouses, and their children and grandchildren were gathered at a Thanksgiving table, we would be “Exhibit A” of America’s melting pot.
All would speak English, but some would hesitantly. Several children are intentionally bilingual; their grandparents are not Americans.
My melting pot family would include bi-racial African Americans, descendants of Native Americans, and a first generation German, Argen-tinean and Lebanese.
If we added my husband’s small group of relatives, we would add a first generation Chinese.
How extended is your family this Thanksgiving?  
My other “blood” family is more fascinating. I have brothers and sisters from every nation and tribe. These family members live lives altered by the Holy Spirit because of their faith in Jesus Christ.  
We who are children of God, we new creatures in Christ, remember how things were before confirming reservations for the ultimate thanksgiving banquet in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As an old song proclaims, there’s plenty of room at the table. To make your reservation, see John 3:16.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, now and later.