It was a light year for hay and life is crazy for everyone, so we knew we would be bringing in this load ourselves. The situation was not perfect. When is it ever though? My husband Guy had periodontal-surgery on Monday and worked an overflowing schedule this week due to an international seminar he is in charge of the following week. He is the muscle for our hay crew and admittedly he was tired. Please don’t think we are ungrateful and whining, only understand we are helpers…which means, for the most part, we are used to doing everything ourselves and then helping others. Don’t get me wrong either, we have been the beneficiaries of Christian service before and perhaps that’s what made us even more the “helpers”. We know how good it feels when your neighbor shows up, and to lend a helping hand, when your workload is just too much.
Now back to the miracle of the day. We were on day two of hauling hay and admittedly we were moving a bit slower than the day before. My husband and I with our 10 year-old-son were content to bring in the load of hay this year. We had a sunny weather forecast for a week and we knew we could get it all in eventually. We enjoy the time together even though the work is hard.
I like to farm because it gives me time to reflect and today I began to reflecting on a story that took place during the Spanish flu epidemic. Those were difficult times. My memory was a bit foggy with some details but I clearly remembered certain details. A man had cared for and lost half of his family to that Spanish Flu, yet he still needed to go out and harvest his sugar-beets. When he went to the fields to work, to his astonishment he found the men from his congregation already had done the work. He just sat down and cried.
Though I never had a story like that in my life, I was pondering that life was starting to inch closer to it. Today, in a small gracious way, this story came back to me as I pondered how hard our life has been since the pandemic. Life had been stressful for us for years. To save you from boredom, I will keep the sharing of that stress to the past 7 years. When we came to this new area we had a lot of trouble building a house and setting up a medical clinic, but that was nothing compared to the stress that came to our family in the beginning of the pandemic of 2020. We contracted Covid, which was later medically confirmed, early on in the pandemic. We were sick before the shut-down and even before we knew what symptoms to look for. Since I had several autoimmune diseases, and I was physically weakened by a miscarriage, I was a sitting duck for this disease…There was no time to grieve my loss in a culturally normal way or really understand everything that had happened… It was during that same time and due to my weakened state, I fell ill pretty quick and became a covid-long-hauler.
With that said, I was really lucky that I am married to one of the best Chinese Medicine Doctors in the West and he had herbal medicine and acupuncture that was effective in treatment against this unknown virus. He was able to care for me and keep me from hospitalization and dying. I instinctively kept my distance from people and after three weeks I wiped away my tears and and I went to work. I started back to my regular routine of managing my husband’s clinic and taking care of the farm.
When the “shut- down” happened in the US and our kids were sent home for their schooling, it was hard for people. It was difficult for us too. There was no shut down for medical workers. We adjusted our clinic to the requirements of the State and local area to stay open, and we worked hard to keep our first responders, and parents with young families working and healthy during that time. We had a spare room at the clinic and so I would help my son with his school, run the clinic, and watched my home fall into a deteriorated state…since I had very little time to work on it.
It was at that time I was extended call serve in our local congregation. I was called serve and minister to the sisters in our congregation. I’d been prepared by the the spirit of the Lord, to know that this was going to be the case, so I immediately accepted the assignment when it was extended. I found that serving during this difficult time wasn’t a burden, it was a blessing. Serving the Lord as I served my fellow sisters gave me a way to channel my grief into something positive. I worked to serve others who were in distressing circumstances and I felt myself heal and change at the same time. Then three years later my assignment changed, but the burden of my responsibilities remained heavy.
Now for what all this has to do with hauling hay. We weren’t just having a busy summer or a hard year…it has been hard for many years. So now maybe you can imagine what I might have felt when my angels in chaps showed up today. I was rolling bales of hay so they could be more easily picked up by the truck and trailer in the north end of the field, so I was the only one that could see when the help arrived. I couldn’t hold back the tears when our neighbors, who have enough to do with their farm and work, came to help us. I still can’t think about it without getting emotional. Those strong, service oriented neighbors made quick work of a job that would have taken us days to complete.
As I pondered on the story of the harvested sugar beets I realized while I haven’t burried half my children and our crop, while important is not our livelihood…Yet I cannot express in words what it was like to see our unexpected help. I feel a peace and love that is better than anything entertainment can offer. I feel what is feels like to be rescued again and it is amazing and special. So remember that when your trying to escape the stress and pressure of your world you will be lifted to a higher state of living if you seek to lift the load of another.
#gatherinchrist
#HearHim
#helpaneighborinneed
#justserve
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