Last Monday, my Mom and I packed up the car and headed down to Shelbyville, Indiana. We were making a much-needed visit to my Uncle Steven, his family, my Grandma and Papa. After the roughly five hour drive and obligatory Chick-Fil-A stop, we arrived at my Uncle Steven's house and the visit began. The two days included a lot of talking and catching up on each others lives. One of my personal highlights of the trip was spending time with my Papa who I had not seen in thirteen years. Needless to say, we had both changed tremendously in that span of time.
I was entranced by his passion about his relationship with God and sharing his story with everyone around him. He was a farmer basically his whole life and because of recent health issues he decided to leave his farm to be closer to family. Most people would be resentful about having to leave what they love to do, but not Papa. I am sure that he went through a period of adjustment and wondering what his purpose is now that he is no longer on the farm, but when he spoke all I could see and hear was love of his animals and work, acceptance of what God has for him in his life now, and gratefulness that he is still on this earth to do God's work.
One story in particular that Papa told about his farm stuck with me. I don't remember all the details of the story, but it happened very shortly before he got sick and decided to leave the farm. In fact, this event was part of the reason he ended up leaving. He began by saying, one day he had planted hundreds of tomato plants and bell pepper plants. Since my Papa is old school, he had done all the planting manually (on his hands and knees). After a long, hard day of work, he looked over what he had done and was so happy. He even said that he looked up at the beautiful sky and thanked God for the beautiful weather. Not long after this, him and the guy that had been helping him, returned their gazes to the sky and saw an ominous storm cloud looming above them. Before they knew it, hailstones about the size of tennis balls were plummeting to the ground not sparing a single tomato plant. After the storm had passed the next day, Papa got up and headed to buy more tomato plants. So with plants in hand, he replanted over a hundred tomato crops, once again on his hands and knees. When time came to harvest his work, he paced through the rows of tomatoes noticing something was wrong. His crops had been scavenged by rodents, who had peeled the tomatoes and then eaten them. Another crop ruined. Stubbornly, Papa returned to buy even more tomato plants for his last try at harvesting them. After planting them, he returned later to discover that they had been struck with blight.
Now Papa did not tell this story in search of pity or to show his human determination. No, he told it to show God's imprint on his life. Many comments were made about the similarities of these events to some sort of divine plague issued by God. Papa, in his calm and straightforward way, agreed that God was sending him a pretty clear message. Papa continued by explaining that, after that third crop of tomato plants were ruined, he finally got the message. God wasn't testing his strength or determination, because God clearly knows that Papa is a stubborn, hard-working man. God was saying "This farm is no longer your home or your work. You work solely for Me now." Shortly after that Papa fell ill and left his farm.
Papa spoke with such purpose and saw the humor in the way God chose to speak to him. God knew that the only way to get straight to Papa's heart was to target his beloved farm. Although he misses his goats and chickens, Papa repeatedly explained that he is where God needs him and he now more than ever sees that the things of this world are temporary. When God calls how should we respond? In the same way my Papa did: "Lord my ears are open and my tired feet are ready. Where to next?"
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