Jesus Is the One Thing
Farming is unpredictable.
Four years on our farm in East Tennessee, and that is probably the major lesson I have come away with.
Rain is good. Too much rain is bad.
Sun is good. Too much sun is bad.
Predators are needed to keep the ecosystem in check. Unless they come after the animals you are raising. Then there are probably too many of them, and they are a problem.
A four-wheeler is an incredibly useful tool. Unless it breaks for the fiftieth time. Then it is really not helpful at all.
People are needed. Extra hands are great. But with those people come personalities. And someone has to try to make all those personalities work together and get along and feel content.
Plan A is a good plan. Until it doesn’t work. Then you go to Plan B. Don’t be surprised if it takes dozens of attempts to find a plan to keep the pigs in their paddock.
(Pigs are really frustrating animals to raise without permanent paddocks. Just take it from me.)
A farm can’t be left randomly for a vacation. You have to have people who can care for the farm while you are away.
Problems will ensue while you are away just like they do while you are present.
Honestly, my entire post today could continue on in this manner . . . sharing how hard farming is because that is what is currently weighing on my heart. I love this life. But it’s hard. And for us, this farm isn’t our livelihood. My husband works full-time off of our farm. We don’t rely on our animals to pay the bills.
I remember how, in Little House on the Prairie, when hail destroyed the family’s wheat crop, Pa wanted to sell the farm and move. He couldn’t take it anymore. The frustration was too much. Relying on the weather was too challenging. Move somewhere else. Start someplace new.
Do you ever feel like that?
It doesn’t take a farm for you to feel the pressures of the world pushing down on you. People and money and vacations and work. So many pieces. So many moving parts. And you. The mom. The wife. The woman. The daughter. The friend. You aren’t just a cog in the wheel. You are the principal part. Doesn’t it all hinge on you?
Or does it?
Are you forgetting that in reality, it actually all hinges on Christ?
In Luke 10:41-42, Jesus says to Martha, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed–or indeed only one.” (NIV).
That one thing that is needed isn’t YOU.
Whether you are running a farm or simply trying to run your own house, don’t forget that in the end, you are not the one thing.
Jesus is.
is a former city girl now living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, Tennessee with her husband and four young children. She is passionate about the causes of infertility, adoption, and keeping it real as a mom. You can follow her at flakymn.blogspot.com or becauseofisaac.org.
Photograph © Federico Respini, used with permission
