Welcome to the Second Day of Thanksgiving! Watch out, because I'm going to sing to you again!
(If this is too painful, plugging your ears is definitely an option...)
"On the Second Day of Thanksgiving, my blog friend gave away
a verse that hails and honors yesterday."
I've always felt that the harvest is a perfect symbol of the Lord's bounteous gifts to us...a reminder of the gratitude we owe him. I actually wrote this poem for a harvest-themed Young Women in Excellence program. (For those who are not members of my church, Young Women is the organization for female youth, aged 12-18.)
c1993, Susan Noyes Anderson
Our great grandparents knew about the harvest:
the months of labor gathered in with care,
the gratitude for every hard-earned blessing,
the love for home and hearth, the need to share.
They somehow understood, with true thanksgiving,
the beauty in the sowing they had done;
and when the season ended, in their reaping,
they sensed another cycle had begun.
For growing is the purpose of creation;
we are but branches on our Savior's vine.
The choice is ours; His table's set before us.
What will we offer Him, come harvest time?
I hope all of us can offer Him our gratitude. President Faust once said that "a grateful heart is the beginning of greatness. It is an expression of humility. It is a foundation for the development of such virtues as prayer, faith, courage, contentment, happiness, love, and well-being." But we must use it, or lose it. "Think to thank," suggests President Monson, for "he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious, and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundredfold, yea more" (D&C 78:19). Now THAT would be a bounteous harvest!
May we strive to enjoy the process of receiving eternal glory, and may we never be guilty of saying, "What a wonderful life I've had: I only wish I'd realized it sooner" (Collette).
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