Of Wheatfields and Praise and Harvest 2018

Every year when harvest is finished, the last acre cut, last bushel deposited in the truck to head to town, my heart wells thankfulness and at some point my tongue gives voice to a favorite old hymn of mine.

“The God of harvest praise, In loud thanksgiving raise, Hand, Heart and Voice………”

Harvest is wonderful and overwhelming, hot and hectic, beautiful and busy, tiring and exhilarating!  This was my twenty-first harvest as my farmer man’s wife. As I crushed ice and filled cups and dropped the saran wrap and dug for sandwich bags and stirred up corn dip and wrangled Gatorade into my cart and heated up smoked turkey delivered by a friend {BLESS} and pulled frozen pie slices out of the case at Dillons and washed grapes and piled together hot ham and provolone for sandwiches and made just-slightly-less-than-four-hundred-and-ninety-eight gallons of tea and dipped up rhubarb jello and snatched pre-bagged chocolate chip cookies from the freezer and layered grilled chicken and eggs and bacon and lettuce along with black beans, corn and bbq ranch dressing for salad and pulled out styrofoam boxes and loaded up my Suburban and unloaded my Suburban and recounted in my head every time before I headed out the door and felt mostly scattered most of the time, I breathed in a deep breath and I was glad that this crazy-lovely-work-in-the-wheat-fields doesn’t last any longer than it does.  🙂

Harvest is a blessing. Symbolic on so many levels, if I start veering in that direction. Just plain beautiful. Bobbing, bent golden heads of wheat.

Every grain, every bushel representing our livelihood and our income.

The pressure to work efficiently, safely and quickly once the grain is mature and ready. Racing in an unannounced way against rain and storms and any possibility of hail.

It’s a beautiful way of life. So many ways I count gratitude for it.

In all the shuffle and bustle and dropping things and going for parts and learning to let go and laugh when parts of life lean towards loony, I give praise and I especially grow grateful for the rhythms of rest.

Often, I’ve been at the field when the header gobbles up the last standing stalks and beyond our gaze lie bright, golden stubble fields.

This year as I praised the God of Harvest, these lyrics stood out in bold to me.

“Thy few seeds scattered wide,
His hand hath multiplied;
Here thou may’st find,
Christ’s miracle renewed,
With self-producing food,
He feeds a multitude,
He feeds mankind.”
                                                                ~James Montgomery

Truly.

He feeds mankind. He supplies naturally and spiritually. Isn’t that like our good, good Father? And I feel sober as I reflect that He gives responsibility to us as we steward, to reach out, to help, to give from His resources produced by His hand and His promises.

He sent the rain, little as it was this past season. The sun bounds above the horizon each morning because He set it in motion. The soil produces a crop by His creation.

Yes indeed. The God of Harvest Praise!!!

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