As I think back on our week I have three different thoughts I'd like to share with you. The first is just to share what a great team I'm blessed to be a part of. The second thought is to share a couple of pictures of some unprecedented May weather. And finally a story about a rough looking young man who came and asked for help.
Last week Saturday the soil conditions were showing and the weather forecast was predicting that we were going to be able to get in a couple of days of field work.
So our crew went pretty much non stop from early Monday morning to early Thursday morning finishing custom anhydrous, dozing, drilling, cultivating, planting, spraying, tendering herbicides and seed, and helping customers in the seed shed.
They say a pat on the back is just a couple of vertebrae away from a kick in the pants. I've experienced both and can tell you the pat on the back is way more effective.
So I'd like to recognize and thank our team that helped this week from the bottom of my heart. Alex, Andy, Becky, BJ, Brad, Brian, Karl, Kurt, Linda, Mark, Mike, Pablo, and the gals that got along without them. I want you to know how much you are appreciated for all your efforts.
Well it started raining early Thursday morning. No one really cared at that point. Everyone was worn out.
By Friday morning it was snowing. Central Iowa got anywhere between 3 to 10 inches. This is the first time I experienced measurable snowfall in May. Someone teasingly asked me if I remembered the May snowfall in 1947. Ha ha. The kids may think I'm an antique but I'm not that old.
Our daughter-in-law Emily had some responsibilities with the queen court in Pella at Tulip Time this past week. It was quite a struggle getting activities accomplished during the festivities due to the weather.
Finally, one afternoon I had pulled on the yard to fuel up the sprayer. A tattooed and body pierced young man walked up and asked if I could give him a pull. I asked where he was at and he said he tried to cross a large creek with a 4-wheeler.
My initial thoughts were about myself. I wanted to tell him how many acres I had to spray yet that day. I thought about how swampy it was where he got stuck and that I might not even be able to get to him with a tractor. I wasn't even sure I had a tractor free to go help him.
My instincts wanted to ask him why he didn't have a job. I was tempted to reprimand him for trying to cross such a deep ditch. I prejudicially wondered why his parents allowed him to have so many tattoos and body rings.
Pushing my thoughts aside I asked him to wait while I went to find a log chain. As he rode with me on the tractor I find out he was on the job checking power line poles for $8/hr. He was trying to cross the ditch because if he didn't reach his quota for the day part of his wages were deducted. He last lived in Kentucky but had no parents. He left his grandparents as soon as he turned 18. Suddenly the young man Cody didn't look so ugly anymore.
As I drove my tractor home I thought about everyone and everything I have. And I came within an eyelash of pushing him away because I thought I was too busy. It makes me wonder how many other opportunities I miss. Sometimes we live life so focused on what's coming up we miss the present.
I'm sure there are many times when I come to God and ask for help that I look small and worthless and ugly. Yet He says, "wait while I find what's best for you". But that's not the end of the story. Then He says, "as I have blessed you, you now go and bless others for My benefit".
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