A Farm Girl’s Bad Dream With a Happy Ending

For a number of years I’ve been a farm girl, in station if not always in heart. Most of the time I love the life. I used to milk the cow out in the dewy pasture in the morning. I love new chicks and blooming flowers and abundant harvests. The opportunities for family time and working together are precious.

But sometimes I have resented the way it ties us down (if you have animals that need to be looked after, you can’t just run off on them all the time!) and I haven’t always enjoyed the work. Usually I would rather cook a meal with all the fresh farm products than hoe weeds in the garden. And I’ve had some injuries over the past five years that made it harder to pitch in with all my heart—who feels like working when their knee or foot hurts?

This spring I determined, as I have at times before, that this season I would put everything I had into family and farm life. I would learn to love it. How could I expect to be content anywhere else if I wasn’t willing to delight in my current place?

The adjustment of going from teaching to farm life was hard at first—more so emotionally than physically. It was hard enough that I realized I couldn’t do anything in my own strength. I would need God. I couldn’t just decide to do this and make it happen. I needed to be willing to let God dictate my days and sustain me with His strength.

Because what do I have that I have not been given?

Nothing.

Only through God’s love and grace am I able to walk in the light and serve where He has called me. And I don’t need to worry about what others think or try to prove anything to anyone, not even to my family. I only need to seek His glory in every little choice I make.

As the Lord has been working on my heart, I’ve found myself loving my life as I rarely have before, taking joy in doing what was needed, even if it was something I used to dislike. Sometimes I even wanted to go and hoe in the garden first thing in the morning instead of washing dishes.

Do I now want to be a farmer all my life? Well, I’ll let God decide that. I know that this is where He has me; thus this is the highest calling for me now. I can also trust Him to orchestrate my future. So I will follow God, step by step, and delight in His will.

Of course that decision gets tested from time to time, like Friday two weeks ago. The morning had been beautiful. It was only the second time this season that we picked vegetables for market. I picked snow peas in the dew, and later had fun working in the packing shed with my brothers to bunch radishes.

There was a youth event planned for supper and the evening, so we wanted to be sure to get all the market preparation done before leaving for that, and the boys would need to do chores before supper instead of after supper. Would we make it?

I had committed the evening to God, and the day seemed to be going well. But by late afternoon, I was starting to get a little concerned. The boys were still working in the woods instead of getting at the chores, Selema was still planting something in the garden, and Judith had driven to Berwick to run an errand for Dad. I had gathered and cleaned the eggs so they would be ready for market, but there were still some other little details to take care of. And I really wanted to make supper for my family before we left for the evening.

Judith came home around 5:15. Soon after that, I was rushing to the bathroom to take a shower. My sisters were in the kitchen when I passed through.

“The boys aren’t even doing the chores yet,” one of them said.

“Really?” I stopped in my tracks. “Do they know what time it is?”

“Yes,” Judith said.

I started saying something, feeling that somebody needed to do something to make things happen a little faster. Those chores. They were always holding us back. But Selema said, “You just go take a shower.”

Oh. Yes. Of course. All I can do is my part. Hadn’t I decided to leave it all in God’s hands? I would give my brothers the honor of getting things done without being hounded by a concerned sister.

After my shower, things didn’t look much brighter, though someone did say around 5:30 that the boys had begun their chores. It felt like a bad dream, when you desperately need to get ready to go somewhere and more and more things come up and you run around trying to get everything done and the clock ticks faster and faster and eventually you realize you’ll never make it so you wake yourself up in despair….

Yet, it’s not up to me to make things happen, I reminded myself. And so what if we were a little late? I resolutely kept on with making supper.

And each time I looked at the clock, I was amazed at how little time had actually gone by. Maybe we would get there after all.

Mom eventually took over Selema’s planting so she could shower. Judith and I got supper on the table. Caleb came inside a little before 6:00. I was amazed. Already? Who knew they could do the chores so fast? And he said Jesse would be coming soon too! I never cease to be amazed at my efficient and enterprising brothers.

I loaded camp chairs into the back of the car. And there went Jesse, heading for the house to take a shower. I looked at the time on my phone: 6:00.

Before long the five of us youth were on the road. We were hardly even late to the event.

And even if we had been, it would not have mattered like it always does in my bad dreams.

That evening, our youth group was all together again for the first time in months. Raynold and Lena served us a delicious supper outdoors. We played volleyball for a while. Then as dusk fell, we gathered around the fire again to sing praise and prayer to the God whose beauty is a reality beyond description.

There is a difference between dreams and reality. In a dream, I can wake up when it seems like too much to handle. In real life, I need to stick it out. The latter might be harder, but it’s far more fulfilling. God has grace enough to get me all the way through a bad dream—whether large or small—and right out on the other side into the sweet light of His joy.

Instead of waking up and finding all the difficulties gone, I can wake up to the presence of God in my circumstances, and He leads me through to a happy ending.

Photo Credit: Lena Penner

P.S. This week I would have had the opportunity to go to Ontario for a month or so to help a dear family who really needs a maid. I was very excited about the idea—I haven’t been to Ontario for almost two years, and I’ve sometimes wished for the chance to help a family with young children.

But we discussed it as a family, and concluded that at this time, it would be wiser for me to stay here.

Considering leaving and then deciding to stay was somehow grounding. I had evaluated both ideas—staying here or leaving—and realized that each option would be brimful of amazing experiences. The question was which one was God’s will.

God provided direction through my parents, and the joy in my heart confirmed the decision. In His will, my life is established, and it has a definite purpose. There is no place I would rather be. I look around at my family, think of my church brethren, watch the mist on the North Mountain, and know that I am in the place where I belong.

1 Peter 5:10: “But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.”