Provision
“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”
Hebrews 11:13
On November 11, 1620 the Mayflower landed at Cape Cod in the new world. A Captain Gosnold had named it such in 1602 because of the huge catch of cod that he made there.
After signing the Mayflower compact and agreeing together “to form a civil body politick”; they sought to prepare themselves for the long and arduous winter ahead- a winter in which a full half of their number would perish from disease and difficulty.
In Bradford’s history of the settlement: of Plymouth plantation, he says: “of all the hundred odd persons, scarcely fifty remained, and sometimes two or three persons died in a day. In the time of their worst distress, there were but 6 or 7 sound persons…” Amazingly God sustained them and they survived as a colony and celebrated the first Thanksgiving in America a year later.
Following many hardships and troubles they became the true founders of our great nation.
Being that it was a full 400 years ago this year that they landed on these shores; we will make repeated mention of their struggles and victories as we prepare our hearts to celebrate thanksgiving this year.
These hardy souls left family and friends to start a new life in a new land. We have reaped the blessing of their labors. They left home in troublesome times.
We too live in troublesome times- we may not get on a Mayflower to escape them and start over, but may we have the same mindset of those intrepid pioneers- planting and looking for a harvest- not just in the now, but in the ages to come.
Because of grace,
Tim
