My beloved old Granddaddy was a sharecropper and he had to work very hard to raise his family of 15. I remember as a very small child him telling me about all of the preparation it took to get a field ready in the early spring.
It started with very early mornings and long days in the hot West Tennessee blazing sun, getting the mules or the horses ready for a long days work, getting them hooked up to the old middle buster or to a one horse turnin’ plow, not to mention all of the work it took just to take care of the animals that would perform these tasks out in the field, which very few folks under fifty years of age today know very little about.
Life back then was not ipods, ipads, cell phones, flat screen TV’s and comfort cooled homes, in fact, air conditioning as we know it today was called refrigerated air, mainly found at the drug store in town, first invented by some guy by the name of William Carrier, our home back when I was a child was cooled by a breeze that you prayed for and hoped it would last a good long while.
Many times people want the harvest but they want someone else to do the plowing of the field, someone else to make ready the ground for the planting, the sowing and only then comes the harvest after much work. It’s easy to enjoy the benefits after the long laboring of someone else.
How many of us have enjoyed or will enjoy after the hard work and efforts of others? Here is a good for instance; I have had very little to do with having a wonderful thanksgiving meal, oh! I did cut up a few things for my wife, she had me to fix a few small items, but we’ll sit and enjoy a wonderfully prepared meal that we had very little to do with. I have heard my wife talking about how her feet were hurting and even her knee, mine feels great! Oh! that’s right, it’s because I didn’t do nearly as much as someone else did!
Living in a world today with all of the labor saving devices that we have, has really served to make us lazy, not appreciative of the things that we have, Oh! I know we all enjoy them but do we really appreciate them?
What an opportunity for me to be bringing up the subject of being thankful during this thanksgiving week again, but just think of all of the things that we get to enjoy at the expense of others.
Let’s start with the freedom we have at the expense of our soldiers, the protection that we have here at home at the expense of our law enforcement officers or perhaps fire fighters or paramedics.
Then the salvation that we have at the expense of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ, who paid the ultimate price, not something we did, but something we get to benefit from because of someone else’s sacrifice.
Well! Does this make you want to plow or just enjoy the harvest? Kind of makes you think about the blessings that we have and what a good time to once again remember them and to reflect upon those that made it all possible.
Let’s start today and count our many blessings and name them one by one.
May God continue to bless us as we show our gratitude!
Praying with YOU in mind,
Written by, Ev. Frank Mc Gee ~
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