Still threshing...

We are still cutting wheat.  The header spins round and round snatching the heads off the straw, as it passes through the enormous combine it is threshed.  The grains make their way to the hopper, where they mound up until emptied on to the cart, then the from the cart to the semi and the semi to the co-op in town or a bin on the farm to be stored until prices are a little better.  The chaff, the unusable husk surrounding the actual kernel of wheat, is blown out the back of the combine in a cloud of dust.

There are some days I feel like I am being threshed.  We have seen storms every night this week.  Last night an inch of rain fell on our fields up north.  It will take a few days for them to dry out enough to be harvested now.  When it gets wet the quality of the wheat goes down.  Sarah is not sleeping this week, be it teething or growing or what, I am tired.  Josie misses Marie immensely and acts out or is moody.  At this moment there are low dark clouds west of town once again.  For some reason the Lord lets these storms hit.  Not just the storms of this harvest but the hurricanes of the last year that have ravaged us, the wheels of the threshing cart that have ground against us.  It is part of His plan.  For everything there is a purpose...  And I pray that as I am threshed I will be found worthy.

"His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
Luke 3:17 NIV

August is coming... and the storms we face seem to be stronger these days.  The ache a little sharper, the emptiness a bit more pronounced.  I take comfort in knowing...

"Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say. When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does he keep on breaking up and harrowing the soil? When he has leveled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin? Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field? His God instructs him and teaches him the right way. Caraway is not threshed with a sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cumin; caraway is beaten out with a rod, and cumin with a stick. Grain must be ground to make bread; so one does not go on threshing it forever. Though he drives the wheels of his threshing cart over it, his horses do not grind it. All this also comes from the LORD Almighty, wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom."
Isaiah 28:23-29 NIV

I have hope... this is not forever.  One day we will rejoice with our princess in Heaven, in a land where there are no weeds in the fields, no storms to hamper the harvest...  only joy... someday.

" So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the LORD Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
2 Corinthians 4:12-18 NIV