For those of us farming in the south, we all remember that 2016 was a struggle. We spent many days and weeks praying for rain. The drought seemed never ending. We prayed for rain for what felt like we were praying on deaf ears. We lost hay and even cattle because of the drought. The rains finally came and quenched our parched land, and our farm land began to make a turn-around with a mild, but wet, winter. We rallied through, looking forward to spring hay season to replenish our stock. At the end of April our hay fields were starting to fill up, and we started making plans to cut hay around the 2nd week in May. We began to watch the weather forecasts trying not to be discouraged for the blessings that were coming in the form of rain. We had to put it off a week…then another week…then another. We didn’t want to pray for it NOT to rain, but all knowing that if we couldn’t harvest soon, our hay would be gone; the food for our cattle through the winter as well as the profit from our hay sales. We began to worry…wanting to pray for the rain to stop but still fearful of the drought from last year. Ecclesiastes 11:4 says “Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest.” Although we were becoming impatient and questioning God’s plan here, we just continued to pray for a bountiful harvest in God’s time, not just on what the forecast was saying. As we rolled in to the first week of June, the forecast started looking favorable for maybe a 4-5 day window that would provide us time to cut the hay. In Alabama, June weather starts to bring about the smothering humidity that makes the drying process even more difficult, but with a 4-5 day window we would have a chance to hopefully get the hay cut, dried, and bailed before the next wave of rain would enter. On a Monday, we thought we could get the hay cut when the first wave of rain was over, but it poured rain all day long, soaking our already wet fields. Becoming even more discouraged as our window was closing in on us, we just continued to pray for God to help us. On Tuesday morning, we woke to a new day. It was an extremely unusual day in North Alabama, not only was it cool, high 50’s in the morning and day time highs in the low to mid-80’s, the humidity was incredibly low. The sun was shining, and a wonderful wind was blowing. Truly weather perfection for cutting hay. God provided. We had been up against a schedule. Fearful. Upset. Wavering faith. Scared to pray for the rain to stop…for fear we would only be praying FOR rain in a couple of months when the scorching heat of the Southeast came bellowing down. But God provided. He provided the perfect weather, as well as support from family members to come and help us bail and load the hay. Within 5 days, not only had we cut the hay and bailed it, it was also put in to our storehouses. Over 500 rolls of hay on 3 different farms. Nothing but the work of our Almighty God, providing at just His perfect timing. All that I could think about was the scripture from Mark 4:41 “And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, ‘Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!’” We had fear. We were impatient and even ungrateful at times, wondering why all the rain was coming now instead of later. But Psalm 65:11 says “You crown the year with a bountiful harvest; even the hard pathways overflow with abundance”. Sometimes our pathways are difficult. We don’t understand the hard times and the bad timing. But we can rest assured that God has His timing and reasoning for the hard pathways. God uses the hard times so that we will rely upon Him even more than before and when we remain faithful to Him in everything, He will crown us with a bountiful harvest.
