I grew up on Paul Harvey. I loved his voice and "The Rest of the Story." He would dig into the lives of famous people. Some were heroes, others world changers, and a few were criminals. Every time he took to the airwaves, I learned something. Paul Harvey had deep respect for farmers. He observed this about the rain and the soil"
"Despite all our accomplishments, we owe our existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains." -Paul Harvey
His letter about the American Farmer ended up on a truck commercial. He said it was from an anonymous listener. It sweeps me back to my childhood. Grandpa, Dad, Uncle Mel, and the good people who worked and cared for the farms around us.
Paul Harvey made this speech to the FFA in November of 1978 in Kansas City, MO.
And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker"
-- so God made a Farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board"
-- so God made a Farmer.
"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild; somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it"
-- so God made a Farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt, and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps; who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, and then pain’n from tractor back, put in another seventy-two hours"
-- so God made a Farmer.
God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds, and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place
-- so God made a Farmer.
God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadowlark."
It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners; somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church; somebody who would bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says that he wants to spend his life "doing what dad does"
-- so God made a Farmer.
A farmer can do all of these things right, but God must send the rain. The soil, the seed, and the rain are a necessary combination to feed the world.
"...then he will send the rains in their proper seasons—the early and late rains—so you can bring in your harvests of grain, new wine, and olive oil." -Deuteronomy 11:14
Farmers are itching to break the top soil and plant the seeds. It will happen very soon. Then they will pray for rain and sunshine at just the right time.
Today, I am grateful God sends the rains.
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