Author: E.Y. Redal

Harvest Time Is Nearly Here

It’s nearly harvest time. I guess that doesn’t mean as much today as it did in years gone by. Pre-packaged food has become a way of life. However, I still like to “Put up” a few jars of jams and jellies. My daughter enjoys canning and does as much as she has time for. She is a single parent with two girls to raise and is a local teacher too.

Even though I enjoy seeing the rows of sparkling red, purple and gold jars sitting on my pantry shelves I know it would be foolish for me, with my husband gone, to engage in much harvesting. However, there is the nostalgia. I remember my mother standing over a boiling kettle nearly every day during the harvest season. The kitchen was hot and steamy but the fragrance heavenly. It was almost as good as bread baking days!

I think of the farm when I ponder over harvest time. When I was a young girl, I helped out in the cooking wagon at threshing time. It was fun for me and my cousin, Myrtle, but my aunt and her friends thought it was only hard work. They did enjoy it though. I could tell by the laughing and talking they did. When the men came in from the field, they looked tired and hot, but after they washed up in buckets placed near the cooking wagon, they looked fresh and really ready to eat all the food prepared for them. And, did they eat!

After they ate they laid down in the grassy meadow nearby and smoked their pipes, talking together about crops and stuff that I wasn’t interested in at all. There seemed to be a signal because the men stood up at the same time and headed out to the field again. I think threshing time was a good time too. Oh, I know the farming equipment today does the work quicker and better, but the threshing machine went from farm to farm and people all worked together to get the crops in. The women worked together to keep their men fed too. Today we are lucky if we know the names of our neighbors.

How about us? Are we harvesting the good things, working toward inward fulfillment—toward that inner abundance for which we humans yearn? We can only yield the harvest of peace and love by looking to God as the source of our supply Then we will harvest that inner abundance in our lives. Let’s get to know God and make a jar or two of Jelly to bring over to our neighbor, shall we?

We All Need Peace

I am sitting down by my pond which is in the woods near my house. It is very peaceful here with the birds singing and sweeping down occasionally to get a drink from the pond. The sound of the pond itself which has a waterfall in which the water flows gently down into the pond is peaceful too. My husband and I made the pond and waterfall years ago, but I have always felt full of peace here. I somehow feel that he is still with me when I am here.

My pond is a far cry from what God has created but I can’t help thinking of the oceans, rivers and mountains he has made. The stars in the night sky are so beautiful, yet we hurry to get the best seats at the fourth of July celebration to look at the fireworks! Many of the thousands of people don’t even look up to see the stars that make up a more majestic scene than fireworks could.

Psalm 77:11& 12 reads this way: I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago. They are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about them. These things bring me peace and the thought that God loves me gives me joy.

I have a picture of a woman sitting on a park bench looking out at a lake with mountains covered with trees on the other side. It is a peaceful picture, but do you know what? You can have that peaceful feeling too. Just think about the scenes you have one day seen or some you have seen in magazines or television and think about God. Or, better yet, get out the Bible and read it! You will find peace there and you will find God’s presence too. Just read Psalms 23 and you can’t help but feel peaceful especially when you read words like this: .the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He restores me soul. There, don’t you feel better?