Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving

You might say that I have a thing for holiday books. Since I own about 20 Thanksgiving books; you'd probably be right. Out of my rather large collection, Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas is one of my favorites.

From the back of the book:

"Every once in a great while, the hand of God is easy to see, and so it was with a lonely Patuxet brave and a struggling band of Pilgrims.

In 1608, a 12 year old boy named Squanto was captured in America and taken to Spain as a slave. With the help of Spanish monks who taught him about God, Squanto made his way to England and finally back to his homeland.

Squanto arrived to find an empty village - a deadly virus had wiped out his entire tribe. In their place, a small group of struggling Pilgrims settled and called their new community Plymouth.

Because of his time with the monks and in England, Squanto could communicate with the Pilgrims and knew about God. Soon he became their valuable guide and true friend."

Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving is one of my favorite Thanksgiving children's books because it gives a different perspective to the story that the Native Americans helped the Pilgrims survive. Instead of the usual politically correct version, Metaxas tells Squanto's story in view of God's sovereignty.

God knew when the Pilgrims would arrive. And He knew they would need someone to teach them to farm their new land. So He took something horrible, slavery, and transformed it into something amazing, the preservation of Squanto and the Pilgrims.

I love the concept of God changing something bad into good. It gives me hope for my own life. Specifically it gives me hope that my miscarriage and incurable disease (rheumatoid arthritis) may have beautiful consequences one day. That hope doesn't make them easy now. It just makes them more endurable.

If you are looking for a book to add to your Thanksgiving collection, I highly recommend Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving. Maybe reading about Squanto's life will bring you hope like it does me.

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