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 to 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 rain — to the goodness of God.

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 disappointment 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 proclamation 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 favors 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 the least of these, ye have done it unto me.”

“As a Farm Woman Thinks (4)”  by Laura Ingalls Wilder, published in The Missouri Ruralist, November 15, 1921