TSMSS - Thankful

Yesterday for the Giving Thanks Challenge I stated how thankful I was for grocery stores! I had been thinking that, as much as I love reading about the historical days of yore, I'm thankful that I don't have to raise and kill and/or can my own food or make separate trips to "the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker!" Yet, for those of us who live far removed from the farmlands that provide our food, I do think it is easy to lose the sense of dependence on God during the cycle of sowing and harvesting and miss that feeling of rejoicing when the harvest is safely brought in for another year. I always laughed at how my dad was so fixated on the weather, but he grew up on a farm and knew how quickly the weather could destroy a crop.

I love this old hymn that is associated with Thanksgiving, although it quickly transitions from the fall harvest into God's harvest of His people. The words are beautiful, and I love this college choir's rendition.

May we have grateful hearts for the abundance of the harvest we see every week when we do our grocery shopping! And may we spend as much time thinking about the spiritual harvest as we do thinking about the food we put in our bellies!

COME, YE THANKFUL PEOPLE, COME

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take His harvest home;
From His field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store in His garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, in Thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.

WORDS: Henry Alford, 1844
MUSIC: George J. Elvey, 1858

You'll find more music at Amy's.