I Was Born a Farmer’s Daughter

I Was Born a Farmer’s Daughter

I Was Born a Farmer’s Daughter

Genesis 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. Jeremiah 8:20 The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

I never think of these 2 scriptures that I do not think of my upbringing. My Dad was a farmer and he loved it. He had been a farmer’s son, and the oldest of 8 children. I was one of four girls (no boys) born into our family. We were the Collins Family and everyone in the small farming community knew who we were. We were a very hard working family and my Dad was known for having the nicest looking 75 acres in the country. He had several farm laborers to keep it looking great! Unpaid staff we were. ? My Dad said every time we stuck our feet under his table we were getting paid.

We raised cotton, soybeans, and corn. The cotton had to be chopped (get all the grass and weeds out of it) at least twice before it started blooming and getting ready to produce the cotton. Soybeans had to be weeded (get all the weeds and cockleburs out of them). When fall came the cotton had to be picked a couple of times (by hand, we had no mechanical cotton picker), beans had to be combined, and the corn had to be pulled off the stalk and loaded up to the barn for winter feed.

Along with our farm work, we had our everyday chores of feeding chickens, gathering eggs, milking the cow, and feeding the pigs and all the other livestock. On top of this we always had a very large garden, about 2 acres. We didn’t eat much of anything unless we grew it, picked it and then put it in the freezer or canned it for later consumption. Along with all the homemade butter, jellies etc. that mother would prepare for winter. We had a washing machine but had to rinse them by hand, hang them on the clothesline and then iron it all.

I had a wonderful life!! My parents loved each other with all their hearts and never once did I even think that when I came home from school, they would not be there. They took us to a little church in the community until I was about 12. After that, they never went back and we never talked about why.

When I got married, I didn’t care what he was, so long as he wasn’t a farmer. God has such a wonderful sense of humor. My husband is a pastor and as many of you know, he manages several thousand acres for the same family he worked for while we were attending Bible College, 34 years ago. He is a pastor/farmer and loves every minute of both vocations.

What I am trying to say is, I didn’t have any choice of whose family I was born into. I was a farmer’s daughter and we worked hard all of my years of growing up. “Bored” was never in our vocabulary. We used to tease my Dad and ask him if he laid in bed at night thinking up jobs for us to do. There is always work to do on a farm. My Dad & Mom were raising young ladies that knew how to work and we are all productive citizens. My father knew what was best for us and we all trusted him. I think we turned out pretty good.

When I made wrong choices in my life as a teenager, I never once blamed my dad, the farm life, the hard work, or the family I was born to. They were the choices of my sin nature and I was responsibility for the consequences that came with those choices. I knew better, but chose wrong sometime anyway.

I think we as Pastor/Missionary families have allowed our children to think they are suppose to go astray and rebel because they have such a rough life being a PK or MK. Do we not still believe that our Father knows what’s best?

I was raised in a small community where everyone knew who I was. Just like in our church communities our children are well known by the folks who attend.

Sometimes in the ministry our children make wrong choices. They may blame it on the ministry and having to be the 1st ones at church and the last ones to leave. Had to set up and take down chairs and tables. Clean the building and maybe mow the yard. Are these reasons to make wrong choices? No, they are parents who are trying to teach young people to be responsibile for someone and something besides themselves. Hard work never hurt anyone. I honestly believe that is one reason so many children are going astray – they have too much time on their hands.

We can’t go back in time and make farm laborers out of them. We can help them to know God has placed them in a pastor/shepherd/missionary home. There will always be work to do in His fields as long as He leaves us here to labor. We need many more laborers. Luke 10:2 Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. Don’t begrudge the vocation. Ephesians 4:1 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, It is the highest calling to work for the “Father/King”. He will come back one of these days for His workers. I long to here, Matthew 25:23 “…Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”

Take the time to teach your children we are preparing God’s house for some of His choice servants and guest and they can have a part in it. Raise them to glorify God with their lives. We need another godly seed and another generation to work for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Praise the lord if you had the privilege to be called a PK or MK! Make your heavenly Father proud of you.

Building workers and works until He come,

mrsmoody7@gmail.com
417.881.8922
Mrs. Randall Moody