Thanks For The Harvest

 

"Be exalted, O Lord, in Your strength;
we will sing and praise Your power."

(Psalm 21:13)

  

 The season is over; the rush and struggle of growing and saving the crops is past for another year, and the time has come when we pause and reverently give thanks for the harvest. For it is not our efforts alone that our measure of success is due, but to the life principle in the earth and the seed, to the sunshine and to the rain-to the goodness of God.  "His goodness and mercy does follow us all the days of our lives."

   We may not be altogether satisfied with the year's results, and we can do a terrific amount of grumbling when we take the notion.  But I am sure we all know in our hearts that we have a great deal for which to be thankful. In spite of disappointments and weariness and perhaps sorrow, His goodness and mercy does follow us all the days of our lives.

   As the time approaches when we shall be called upon by proclamations to give thanks, we must decide whether we shall show our thankfulness only by overeating at the Thanksgiving feast. That would seem a rather curious way to show gratitude-simply to grasp greedily what is given!

   When a neighbor does us a favor, we show our appreciation of it by doing him a favor in return. Then when the Lord showers favor upon us, how much more should we try to show our gratitude in such ways acceptable to Him, remembering always the words of Christ, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these, ye have done it unto Me." (Matthew 26:40)

"Thanks For The Harvest"
(November 1921)

Laura Ingalls Wilder
(1867-1957)
Prolific American writer and
Pioneer girl

Taken from the book,
"Little House In The Ozarks"
A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler
The Rediscovered Writings
By Laura Ingalls Wilder
Edited by Stephen W. Hines
Guideposts Edition
(1991)

"Mary and Laura Playing Dolls In The Attic"
(1953)
An illustration by Garth Williams
From the book,
"Little House In The Big Woods"
(1932)
By Laura Ingalls Wilder