When we feel our vulnerability as mortal beings and become aware of the hand of the Lord in our lives, we find ourselves experiencing the overwhelming sensation of gratitude. When we know that he has assisted us and upheld us when we had no strength or wisdom or understanding of our own, then our hearts are filled with a purity of love that blesses and strengthens our very being.
Gratitude can be like an elixir to the soul. It cleanses us of selfishness and of fear. It burns away the distractions that keep us from experiencing and rejoicing in the best that is within us.
The Pilgrims, as we call them, were part of a Puritan sect called the Separatists. When persecution in England increased, they fled as a body to Holland and established a good way of life in Leyden. But they were getting nowhere and their children were forgetting who they were and why they were there.
After many uncertainties and bitter complications, the Pilgrim group made a contract with a London stock company to finance its venture, though the agreement struck was not in their favor at all. When the Mayflower finally left England early in September 1620, there were 102 passengers aboard: 28 married men, 18 married women, 25 bachelors and 1 spinster servant. Three of the women were pregnant.
Elizabeth Hopkins gave birth during the voyage, the other two women shortly after their arrival. There were 18 indentured servants, and what the Pilgrims considered a motley group from Norfolk, Kent, Essex and London. Strangers, as they were called.
There was much suffering on the voyage and wide-spread sickness after they arrived in Plymouth Bay on Dec. 20, 1620. Twenty-two of the men who signed the Mayflower Compact died the first year and half the settlers had died by the end of the winter.
When the harvest of 1621 answered their prayers with the bounty they were so in need of, their hearts rose in gratitude and in a desire to rejoice. There was no flour to speak of, so they did not eat the bread they considered a necessary staple. There was an abundance of eels, cod and clams, and “sallet herbes” — leeks, sorrel, carrots and watercress. The women baked corn bread and corn puddings and the tasty Sautauthig which Squanto had taught them, making a powder of dried huckleberries with parched meal into a sweet and delicate dish. William Bradford sent four men out fowling, so there was roast goose, roast duck and perhaps wild turkey.
Ninety braves followed the handsome chief Massasoit, who had been invited to the feast, onto the little green. And as the three days of feasting progressed, he sent his own warriors out, who returned with five large deer to replenish the dwindling supply of food.
The people, dressed in their best, bowed in prayer to their God who had brought them through great travail to this place of hope renewed and much-needed blessings received.
The Mormon pioneers were another group who were brought through great travail to a place of rejoicing. Leaving their homes and farms in Nauvoo, Illinois, in the hands of their enemies, these thousands of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints followed their leader into an unknown wilderness; sent 500 of their choice young men to fight for their country; buried children, wives and husbands along the way, but kept pressing on.
When the first hopeful band reached the Salt Lake Valley in July of 1847, they plowed and planted seed within hours of their arrival, diverted the mountain stream to irrigate the dry lands, built a bowery in which to worship, and a fort of logs and sun-dried adobes.
The first winter was a struggle against starvation, but the prospect looked hopeful the following spring as the tender crops began to green the brown fields. When a late May frost did damage, they were not discouraged — not until a swarm of crickets that blackened the sky descended like an ancient plague upon them. The insects methodically decimated every stalk of grain. In horror, Patriarch John Smith called a three-day fast and prayer. And the seagulls came, thousands, in great white clouds, every day for three weeks, until their mission of mercy was accomplished.
The Saints remembered, girded their loins and went back to work. The farmers replanted, and the new harvest grew to such abundance that the desire to rejoice and give thanks filled their hearts.
On Aug. 10, 1848, several hundred people gathered under the Bowery, each bringing a contribution to the feast. There was bread, butter and cheese in abundance, vegetables, melons, cakes and pastries — even potatoes and beef.
A Liberty Pole was raised, a cannon fired and the ever-present band to play joyfully amid the quiet mountain fastness. There was much singing, praying and speech-making, with music and dancing to end the day.
Parley P. Pratt wrote a harvest song for this historic celebration, with a chorus that expresses clearly the feelings of the faithful Saints:
Let us join in the dance, let us join in the song
To thee, O Jehovah, the praises belong
All honor, all glory, we render to thee
Thy cause is triumphant, thy people are free.
(see "Utah’s First Thanksgiving," Ensign, October 1982)
Many times throughout the scriptures, the Lord entreats us to receive all that comes to us with grateful hearts — for those things which bring us sorrow and try our souls act as a light to reveal the depths of beauty, true happiness and love which we would never experience otherwise.
"And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more" (see Doctrine and Covenants 78:19).
Sources: Bradford’s History “Of Plimoth Plantation,” from the original Manuscript, Boston: 1898; "Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers," John Masefield, Everyman Library, 1920; "Saints and Strangers," George F. Willison, Ballantine Books, 1965; "Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt," pp. 362-364, Deseret Book reprint, 1972; "Life Story of Brigham Young," Gates and Widtsoe, Macmillian, 1931; "Utah’s First Thanksgiving," Ensign, October 1982.
Susan Evans McCloud is author of more than 40 books and has published screenplays, a book of poetry and lyrics, including two songs in the LDS hymnbook. She has six children. She blogs at susanevansmccloud.blogspot.com. Email: susasays@broadweave.net