farm baby

 I am not a farm girl. I’m a descendant of farmers, have visited farms and appreciate farm folk, but I myself did not grow up with the farm life under my nails. The last six years have done wonders for my soul in terms of bringing me back to the basics: Hard labor produces abundance. A little dirt never killed anyone. You reap what you sow. Valuable life lessons.

As we raise our daughter in the context of farm life, I have stopped to think many times about her environment, and I have determined that farm kids are extremely blessed. There’s a lot of fun to be had out there, adventures waiting to be discovered. But more than that, I sincerely believe that farm kids have a different, even, (dare I say it?) a better understanding of the gospel itself.

Matthew 13:1-10 talks of the sower and the seeds that fell on rocky soil and those that fell on good soil. It talks of roots and soil depth and withering and flourishing.

1 Corinthians 3:9 tells us that we are God’s field.

Mark 4:26 says that the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seeds on the ground.

Hosea 10:12 commands that we “sow for ourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up our fallow ground and seek the Lord.”

John 15:1 teaches us that Jesus is the true vine.

And John 12:24 teaches us that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

I wish I could have read these things through a farmer’s eyes long ago! I regret knowing that my eyes used to only glazed over certain verbiage that, to me, had no reference point and therefore little meaning.

I therefore LOVE the fact that my daughter is growing up in an environment where she is surrounded by the tangible display of these truths. She sees the farmers toil. She watches the seeds fall. She hears the prayers for rain and the thanksgiving for the harvest. Truths come alive on a farm. And I pray that those truths land on a heart of good soil teaching the wee one how to truly live.