Exodus Books Newsletter: Harvest of Praise - November 2010

While Exodus may have a reputation of being pretty well organized and on top of things, that’s not the owner’s fault! As any of our esteemed local customers know, the front desk is usually covered, there are piles on the floor and at least one area is being rearranged. It keeps life interesting for the employees. But to the owner of Exodus, this is not clutter. To him these messes are projects in the works!

Welcome to our latest project. The Exodus Newsletter will keep you abreast of the latest happenings in our little world. In it we will reveal more about ourselves, notify you of our newest titles, and review both curriculum and classics. We will also be inviting you to get involved. Beginning in 2011, we’ll be having drawings every month for those who write reviews and provide other helpful feedback. It’s our hope that we can edify and educate—at least a little—and that you’ll enjoy the venture.

Have a wonderful season of giving thanks and we'll see you again in December!

Eli Evans, for the staff of Exodus Books

Harvest of Praise
by Amanda Evans

Eli has been reading Little House on Plum Creek to our son, Joshua. Everyone loves to hear of Laura and her family as they work and eat and sing together in pioneer America and Joshua is no different. In this book Pa plants a wheat crop like no other. There had never been such a year for growing wheat and he expects a bountiful harvest. Confidently he builds a house. He buys Ma a shiny new stove and a pretty dress. All on credit against the abundant crop that he sees growing green and waving in the wind.

Then the locusts come.

The locusts eat and eat until there is nothing green left. The ones that don’t leave die in the frost but the next year more hungry locusts hatch. Pa has to leave for weeks at a time to go back east and work for pay harvesting others’ crops.

Life can be hard sometimes. Figurative locusts repeatedly attack everything green in our lives and suddenly what we were counting on just isn’t there anymore. People suffer now just as they did back then. There is physical suffering, financial suffering, emotional suffering. The sunny days of summer are gone and winter, cold and dead, arrives.

In the midst of this we have a day dedicated to being thankful. And really, many of us have much more to be thankful for than we might realize, from the comforts of life to loving family surrounding us. But despite these blessings, many might be tempted to have a bit of bitterness mingled in the festivities as they think on the pain and loss endured during the year. Whether they are physically hurt, financially broke, or just depressed about the weather, devoting a day to thankfulness might seem like a joke.

We've all heard of the venerable old person who walked to school up hill both ways in the snow “and was thankful!” But God doesn’t necessarily call us to just put on a happy face during our tribulations. The Bible has plenty to say about drowning pillows in tears. What we are called to is faith and worship. Though our lives might seem withered and dried up, we should remember that as Christians we are God’s wheat field, planted and tended for a purpose. It might not be—and often isn’t—our idea of a good purpose, but, locusts or no locusts, it is a glorious purpose and our yield should be His praise.