I am growing accustomed to this. I never planned on leaving the Appalachia I love so much to come back to Florida. My wife surely did not. I never planned on having a small home plumbing business during the 2nd Great Depression, with 9 children. I certainly didn't plan on blowing a few discs in my back 4 months ago, being unemployed, unable to rest at ease in the comfort of unemployment or work comp., ( small business owners can't afford comp, and unemployment is not allowed for injured folk!), or many of the other things that are happening in my life at present.
In fact, there are quite a few things that I did not intend to take place in my life. But they have.
I had been telling myself for some time that I would be more involved in the Garden next time. Just like the countless self-exhortations to do more of the training in our homeschool, and leading Family Worship when I got home from a hard days work. Again and again I told myself that things had to change. That I had to get back to our original vision of homesteading, and training the children to a consistency with their own spiritual duties. It was easy to see that my wife was overburdened with doing her job and mine while raising up a large family, homeschooling, training in the Scriptures, grinding wheat, cutting hair, learning to sew and make soap, etc.,... Yes siree, I was going to get back in the saddle and start being the Old Me...soon. Little did I know how God would answer my and my wife's prayer. It wasn't that stupid waste of a dollar they call Lotto. Nor did I find that perfect "Hobby Farm" listing. You know the one. Where some older couple with no kids and a ton of extra land just wanted to "bless" a family like mine with a little piece in exchange for the upkeep of their farmstead! And, of course they would live in an area that was inhabited by many like-minded Saints of God who we could fellowship and worship with according to our understanding of the Word!
No, that is not what happened to get me back on track.
Instead, I was forced, kicking and screaming ( mostly from the pain of a few herniated discs) to quit working away my life away from my family. Never, in a lifetime would I have chosen this way. But, I now think that was my problem. Never in my lifetime would I have chosen any way.
Sure I wanted to be at home with them. I really did pray and seek a way that I could be more involved in their daily education and training in righteousness. I searched out all the opportunities that I could see to figure a way for a modern father, with a large family and no money, to get things "right". I yearned, and still do, to find a meaningful way to fulfill that most sacred duty, raising up godly seed, that any father has! But I could not figure it out because all I could see were the Giants in the Land.
I had my plans certainly. I would continue to work hard and save every spare nickel...when there was one, and SOMEDAY, I would find that perfect place with little money down and orchards bursting with fruit just waiting for a fellow like me to step into it! That would solve all my problems! After all, I would be working on our homestead. We would put up a few large canvass surplus tents, hand dig a nice well, and start felling trees for the cabin! Surely, I knew it was a long shot. But the Lord knew my heart and I could always hope for a little help from Him.
On THAT day things would finally be alright! I would be home and involved in making sure the children had a proper worldview. We would rise early and begin with long prayer and thanksgiving on our way to the milk shed. There was even a chance that some of my children would still be young enough and receptive enough to give me their heart and let me show them all the lessons that I had learned, about how God wants us to live for Him, and to set our affections on the things above and not on the things of this world!! I really thought that the key to giving up my desires was to simply have some of them...well, o.k.... the majority of them, fulfilled! Then it would be easy to let go of the gut wrenching need to obtain my dream of independence, right?
Could it be that I am the only misguided, self-seeking, lover of my covetous dream-farm, christian out there? Am I the only person who has started out with a fire for the things of God, ( only to discover that somewhere on the way my will replaced His?), and a vision for the next generation, and a zeal for seeking His pleasure and a real need to know that He feels love in return from me as gratitude for that day? You remember that day... when the light was changed to darkness, and life was breathed into your dead corpse for the first time, and suddenly you realized that you were taking your first real breath of fresh air, ever, in your lifetime? What happened to that day? Where have those feelings gone? Why is it so hard to even remember the unexplainable joy that came and raised us up like the men in the Valley of Bones, that suddenly grew flesh and became Living Beings!? We swore we would never forget it! We became fools to all who knew us as we prattled on and on for endless hours about this incredible New Birth! Oh, our hearts did burn within us!
And somewhere along the way of our journey to that City whose builder and maker is God, on that path to the Celestial Kingdom that is not made by any Man's hand, our vision was somehow blurred and the visage became more temporal, and we changed the Glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man. For some in was land, for others... new skills learned, and hobbies fulfilled, dreams of butter-milk and a skep full of bees, or some homemade soap with hyssop from the herb garden! After all, we all know that milk and honey and... well hyssop is in the Bible somewhere, too! And we know that there really is value of sort in the things that we seek. It really will be a better upbringing for our children, and their really is a great need to watch over them and keep them pure and unspotted from this world. This world. We see daily what is happening in this world. Wars and financial melt-down, and scandal and corruption, and genetically modified food, and Humanist Zealots tracking down the peaceful children of God for wanting to be seperate and clean and taking their land and their liberty, and on and on...and...before we realized what was happening, the need to grasp whatever security we could find overwhelmed us and became... our trap.
Matthew Chapter 6:
25Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? .....
31Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
In the morning, my son's and I are adding more compost to the garden. And my wife will cut our hair after she grinds the wheat. And we will all gather in the evening to prepare ourselves for the Lord's Day Sabbath.
My plans for my homestead have changed...in ways that I did not expect.
And I am thankful.
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