I love Thanksgiving. It’s a beautiful holiday without a lot of fluff and frills. Even as it gets overshadowed by Christmas decorations, Thanksgiving just knowingly smiles. People rarely struggle to remember the true meaning of Thanksgiving.

This year I find myself reflecting on the planting, growing, and harvesting process of our food. I find it simply amazing! What a miracle it is that, from a teeny seed we receive such bounty. I say miracle, but there’s actually a lot more to it than that. Ask any farmer and you’ll get an earful about the multitude of factors that can affect success and yields of a crop. Weather, nutrition, plant crowding, soil quality, seed quality, air flow, watering, time of planting, time of harvesting; all can have a significant impact. It simply blows my mind just how skilled our farmers are, and all of the things they have to keep track of and account for.

So today, I am thankful for farmers.

There’s also wisdom we can learn from our farmers. When farmers plant their seeds, they aren’t expecting results right away. With experience and understanding, they know it’s going to take time for those seeds to grow and mature into plants and eventually into harvest-able fruit. And farmers don’t stand around waiting for the seeds to grow, with arms crossed and a sour expression. They get right to work doing what they can to help those plants grow. They educate themselves on best practices, research equipment that can help them, and so much more. If crops are under-performing, they don’t blame the plants. They get to work figuring out what they can do to increase their yield. 

We might not all be expert farmers, but we can benefit from their example. We can strive to plant good seeds around us by the things we say and do. We can try to nurture and improve yields of other good people by being helpful and supportive. Rather than blame things that we have no control over, we can try to look for things we can do to make the world a better place. 

So this Thanksgiving as I enjoy the wonderful meal that is prepared by many hands, I am especially thankful for the hands that grew it.