Remembering

It's good to remember the past sometimes. I'm finding that to be very true. Like I said yesterday, when I am going through things that I might not understand, I try to recall the past and the ways that God always is there.

Today I came across this verse:
"I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds." Psalm 77:11-12

That's exactly what I am talking about. I'm trying to meditate on that verse today, and through the next several days. God is indeed mighty. He is indeed good. He knows what is going on in my life and in the lives of my friends and family that may be going through tough situations as well. Realistically, this isn't even a tough time. When I compare this situation to so many I know around me, I am incredibly humbled. I actually find myself rejoicing in this turn of events. I was telling someone yesterday that it almost seems as if God read the DEEPEST desire of my heart that I didn't even know what there and granted it in spite of what we thought. I feel relief and joy. I am joyFULL. FULL of joy.

I have been recalling the past...I can think of one instance where there was much uncertainty for many years and it has now resulted in joy. It was a hot summer night many years ago. I had been working hard all summer with my dad, waking up at 4 in the morning to go out and water the corn with him. I had been carrying the water socks, checking the pipe, spending hours on the back of the four wheeler with him. Each day we could see the crops growing a little more and they looked better than we had seen for a long time. I was planning to leave on a trip the next day, I was going to Idaho for a few weeks to teach Bible clubs. I remember I was sitting talking with my mom, and it was pretty late.

We heard a crazy storm coming on. There was howling winds and the lights were flickering. The next thing we knew, we were hearing hail. We looked out the window into the night and there it was, the big, round chunks of ice. We knew we could be in trouble. As a farmer, hail is one of those things that makes you hold your breath and time stand still. In an instant, all of your hard work can be wiped out.

The lightning came, and suddenly, the ROAR and the howl. I still remember my mom running through the living room, my dad behind her, rounding all of us up and rushing us into the basement. It was a tornado. It was a freak storm. We heard a loud BOOM as a tree landed on our roof. It was madness and chaos in the middle of the night. When it was all over, the phone calls began.

Our house had major roof damage from the tree that landed on it. We looked out into our yard and one of our graineries had been lifted up and landed in a crunched heap across the yard. My aunt and uncle's house was a mess. Their siding destroyed, windows shattered. My aunt had pulled her son from his bed mere moments before a window shattered into the bed, spraying glass everywhere. Another family member had water rushing into the basement.

My dad and I got into the truck at 2 a.m. and took off to survey the damage around the farm. Everywhere we looked it was all gone. The beautiful stalks of corn that had stood proudly in the sun that afternoon were destroyed, nothing left. Our yard was a massive jumble of tree limbs and it was destruction, everywhere we looked. Our neighbors and friends had the same situation. It was devastating.

In one moment, all we had worked for was gone. We had crop insurance, sure, but it can never replace what the crops are truly worth. We tried to recover from that storm, but we just couldn't. For years my dad and his brothers struggled to make it work. Giving up the family farm just didn't seem like the right thing to do. As I watched my dad buckle under the stress, I felt more and more sadness, more desperation, more crying out to God.

It seemed impossible to understand. What was God DOING through this? Why were we struggling so? Why wasn't this working? Finally, the family made the decision to sell the farm. It wasn't easy. We were a tightly knit group and making this decision meant breaking us apart in distance. It meant my dad and his brothers having to find new jobs, not an easy task at middle age. It meant no more family bonfires on the farm, no more baseball in the fields, no more hide and seek in the haybales and cornfields. It meant giving up that dream.

God knew though. He knew what was happening. He knew what he had in store for us. He is mighty, and he was in control.

How times have changed! Yes, we all now live farther apart, but we are still close. My dad now works for a missions organization. It's a job I think he was made for! He loves it, he's good at it and he is doing great things for God. He and my mom live in a new house just on the edge of town. The hours my dad now has allow him to do something else he loves...golf! He and my mom can take vacations, something they could never do easily when on the farm. He doesn't have to hold his breath in fear any time he sees storm clouds coming now, and the frost coming early doesn't mean damage to crops, it simply means they need to cover the flowers in their yard.

My aunts and uncles are doing fine as well! They all found jobs, they are happy, they are living good lives. We didnt' know what God had in store for us, and we fought it for years, but once we submitted, he blessed us beyond our wildest dreams.

I admit it, I do still feel a little twinge when I drive by the farm. I miss it. I look at our old house as we pass by the property on the highway and wonder if those pictures we drew on the wood under the linoleum in the kitchen are still there. I wonder if the stairs still creak the same way that they used to. I wonder if the kids living there now love jumping down those last two steps into the family room as much as I did. I wonder if our old fort of trees has long been removed. I see my cousin's play house sitting outside of their old house and the sandbox below it and think of the hours we spent there having fun.

It hasn't changed our closeness though. That cousin I was just talking about ? He's the one that recently came to visit. His kids are like my own. We can still spend hours together, but instead of building castles in the sand, we are talking about how to raise our kids, how to live a life for God, how this situation or that is affecting us.

I was talking with a good friend yesterday, one who is going through a much more difficult circumstance than I, and she said something that stuck with me. She said, "I can't wait until we are a year from now and we look back and see what came of all of this." (Or something like that.) Amazing words, and so like these words: "I will remember your miracles of long ago..."

I can't wait...a year from now I hope I remember to look back at this post and remember the miracles of long ago.