A Moment To Remember

Cutting hay, cattle moving, that just about wraps up the day around here. Just came in from gathering around 20 cow/calf pairs from a neighbor’s pasture that I rent. They have it pretty well eaten down and the calves are figuring that another neighbor’s corn field is the place to be.  So a little while ago the eldest daughter and myself gathered em up in the brush, and also did some spead running outside of the fence with the six calves that decided to make the outside of the pasture their home. Getting wild beef calves in is not foot work, its four wheeler work, and fast to boot. There’s no such thing as bringing them to a gate and running them through, first of all, all of the cows would run out of an open gate so that takes care of that idea. No, I just run em till they freak out and crash the fence back into the pasture. One thing always amazes me, how those calves have not the slightest problem getting out every day, but there sure does seem to be a big problem getting back into the pasture! Anyway, we got em locked up in the neighbor’s front pasture and tomorrow morning I’ll bring that herd home for a few weeks and let that brushy pasture they were on recover.

Cutting hay these past couple of days has me in awe! Its doing so well! How many years in a row we didn’t even get a second crop because of droughts and now its almost like payback time! So I’ll keep hammering away at those hay fields, plenty more to do this summer yet and I do believe it’ll take me till fall to get er done. But there won’t be much need about thinking about purchasing hay for this winter! And while cutting hay these last couple of days I have time to think, of course, to dwell on things. The biggest thing on my mind is an incident that happened this past weekend. Its really been in my thoughts. As mentioned in the previous post, we went to a Gospel concert, or what ever a person would want to call it this past Saturday evening. Details are in the previous post.  Now that kinda thing is right up my alley, so to speak. I was always much more comfortable in a praise and shout church than in a dead pan religious church, its just the way I am. One thing though, in church I’m usually fairly quiet, more like reserved. I shouldn’t be, but that’s the way its been.

At the Southern Gospel service I really had a great time! At this old school, praise and shout Church of God that we were visiting even I loosened up. I was clapping my hands till they were sore, I was shouting, at a fairly low level, “Amen”. OH I was having the time of my life. And some of the characters in that church we visited were shouting up a storm, let me tell you, which further helped to loosen me up more cause I’d have to be pretty loud to blend in! After a great hour and a half of old fashioned, foot stomping, hand clapping, praise shouting Southern Gospel music it finally came to an end. I just had to visit their table with CD’s and stuff, bought four of em, and soon it was time to meander out the door and down the steps, find our car, (which wasn’t that hard to do cause it was right over on the side of the church), and head home.

As we were leaving there were a couple of people at the bottom of the outside steps. One was the loudest person in the place shouting praises during the Gospel show. So I figured I’d say high and see you later. Just passing by type chit chat. You know how it is. Besides that guy shouting them praises and always raising his hands in the air in pure joy is the kind I want to spend a couple seconds with. I truly admire someone who lets loose for God. What he told me is something I’ll never forget as long as I live, and I mean it. He said hi and all that stuff and then when right into telling me about his day. He was told that very day that he would die from the cancer they had just discovered in him. I was totally speechless, couldn’t offer a prayer if I tried, couldn’t hardly say anything, and that’s rare!

He said that he was God’s, he was born again to the bone, he was had no fear of his standing with God, but the devil was making a full blown attack on the only thing that he could possibly hit, his body. As I said, I was speechless, and now I know why. A person could listen to hundreds of sermons, could read hundreds of books on faith but I witnessed a person with faith in God that literally shook me to the very marrow of my bones. That had never, ever happened before in my walk with God. Incredible faith, incredible love for God, to be able to praise and shout, to be clapping to the music, to stand with his hands in the air to our Saviour, after finding out what he found out that very day. Think about it, dwell on it, I sure am.  He wasn’t moping around, he was on an all out attack against the forces of hell. A testimony that is hard to top, letting loose for an hour and a half, I would have thought that he didn’t have a problem in the world! In fact that’s what I did think during the service!

Those that know me know that I like hanging around real folks, not phonies, not people that act all high and mighty, all dignified and that. No, I like the regular working class grunts, the farmers, the folks that are considered that low class by a world that’s spiralling to hell fast. That’s mostly what the crowd in that little, old fashioned Church of God were. Not wealthy, many just plain poor folk, but they had something that allot of dignified churches lack, they were happy, they were joyful in the Lord! I want what they got! As I wrote, this had more impact on me than hundred of books of faith, more than hundreds of sermons. A living testimony, a hand clapping, praise shouting, devil stomping man that has all of hell hitting him. A poor working class grunt that has more faith and love for God than most Christians I’ve ever met. I will never forget that moment as long as I live. In all my Christian walk, no moment has ever had more impact on me, no moment has changed the way I think and act more than that one. And I’m hanging onto it!