Tag: #farm

Know who your friends are.

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The fact that I haven’t written on this blog in six months is a testament to just how busy our lives have been. The summer saw us building fences and barns; finally planting our hay fields and pastures and running…always running.

Now that things have opened back up again Dave started going back to church. I’ve been a few times, but honestly, I keep saying that I’ll go back to church when the the barn is done. I just don’t have time. The exterior was done months ago, but we’ve been focused on building stalls, hay lofts, running water lines and electrical lines and getting concrete.

Throughout this entire process I’ve felt so blessed, so good in my relationship with God. But, we forget how easy it is to just let it slip away. It’s death by a thousand tiny cuts of the string that ties your heart to Him.

Our barn is almost finished, but doing construction at the beginning of winter is not ideal. We had a to dig a trench down the middle of our driveway to run the electrical lines because it was the only spot dry enough. It completely destroyed our driveway. I cried for a day after that. We’ve had so much rain and wet snow it’s been almost impossible to get the floors firm enough to do the concrete, and then I found out the concrete needed to be higher up my stall walls than I had planned for. More tears and possibly time in bed was the result of that news.

Coming to the end of more than a year of constant building has taken it’s toll on me, mentally. I just want to be done. Finding out our concrete pour was now delayed because of the coming cold front…where was God in all of this?

But that’s the thing. God is constant. He is, was and always will be. It wasn’t that God had stopped being a part of my building process, it was that I had stopped including him. I had stopped trusting him.

Not once, like NEVER EVER during the building process did God let me down. We had one of the wettest summers on record here in Ontario. And yet, when I needed things to be dry so that they could pull the cover on my barn, dust was blowing. Thank you, Jesus. There are too many other moments just like that over the summer for me to document. People would show up at just precisely the right time, I got deals I didn’t expect or look for. God has had his hand in every aspect of our farm. So then why did I stop trusting him now?

It is so easy to get so caught up in the trees of your life, the things that you are doing, that you miss the forest. This past month I’ve been so busy “doing” things that I forgot the one who helped me do it all. You tell yourself I’ll read my Bible tomorrow, or I’ll go to church next week. But in the end, what you are really doing, is allowing the world, your “things” to come between your relationship with God.

God wants to be your best friend, the one you turn to in good times and bad. Yesterday I was miserable; wallowing in my misery, miserable. Sometimes, I listen to music when I’m doing my stalls. As I was choosing my music, a name came into my head; Jason Gray…

When I lose my way
And I forget my name
Remind me who I am
In the mirror all I see
Is who I don’t wanna be
Remind me who I am
In the loneliest places
When I can’t remember what grace is

Tell me, once again
Who I am to You, who I am to You
Tell me, lest I forget
Who I am to You, that I belong to You
To You

Just reading those lyrics again today brings tears to my eyes. God loves us SO MUCH!!! Losing my way, putting my relationship with God on the back-burner…for me that is my loneliest place.

Thank you, Jesus, for reminding me who I am to you and who you are to me…my best friend.

God bless,

Meredith

Me and My Big Mouth

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Let me start by saying that life in the country; life on our farm; is amazing. There is not one person in my family who hasn’t blossomed in this environment; in the freedom of the space. But building a farm from scratch does not come without its share of worries and stressors; the biggest of which for me has been financial. There have been many times over the past few months when I have felt my share of anxiety over how quickly our bank account can diminish. I know we’ve planned for this, but it’s still a scary thing to see it happen.

But, as a person of faith, I can’t tell you the number of signs and ways that God continually reminds me that He loves me and is watching over us. From the ease of Everett getting his new job five minutes from our house, to the recent purchase of a harrow for my riding arena. Time and time again God is there, watching out for us, protecting us, reminding us that He is near.

For all that, I have still felt anxious and overwhelmed. I don’t know how you deal with your anxiety, but mine tends to result in me lashing out at the people closest to me – my sweet and caring family. I know I’m doing it, I hate that I’m doing it, but I can’t seem to help myself and so it’s something I continue to bring before God.

Yesterday this was one of my verses – “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret – it only leads to evil.” Psalm 37:8. DING, DING, DING! My fretting has absolutely resulted in anger and wrath and harmful behaviour. Okay Lord, point taken. And today this was my verse – “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your heats and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7

That verse doesn’t mean God is going to give me whatever I pray for, but it does mean that if I give him my worries and my fears and my anxiety he will give me peace. A peace that will guard my heart and my mind and by extension – my mouth. God will give me peace that I can share with my family instead of my fretful wrath.

How many times in your own life have you carried a burden of stress needlessly? I know the truth of these verses because I have lived them in my own life many times over. But still, my patient and loving Father, reminds me when I need to hear it, reminds me to give Him my cares. Today my prayers are about giving up my worries, and embracing the journey that I am taking, knowing that I am watched over, and loved, and protected every single step of the way.

God bless,

Meredith

Count your blessings, not your problems.

Who’s Got Your Back?

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Last week I was experiencing a significant amount of anxiety. I could blame it on the stress of packing and getting ready to move, or the state of the world, or the rising number of Covid infections in our neck of the woods, but none of those things would be true. The simple fact of the matter is that I was afraid. God has been incredibly good to my family and He has poured blessings upon us and between you and me…I just didn’t feel worthy. I was in a place where I just kept waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under me. I was convincing myself that all the good things we have received were really just a prelude to a disaster. I worked myself into a state of terror that we could lose everything. Have you ever been there?

It was on Friday afternoon, driving alone in my car that I realized my fear, my terror was actually a lack of faith manifesting itself. I give God so much credit and glory for the amazing gifts he has given my family, and the farm is a huge one for me. But problems arise when we place those gifts above the one who gave them to us. Getting out of sync with your faith and trust in God is what allows doubt and fear to invade your heart. Yes, the farm is a blessing, but appreciating it needs to be a balance and not an obsession. In the words of the Anglican prayer “All thing come from thee and of thine own have we given thee.”

All week I kept reaching out to God, asking him for peace, but it wasn’t until Friday that I realized I hadn’t given him my problems. I’d asked him for help but I clutched my fear to my breast and held on tightly. I will never understand why God has chosen to bless me, I will never feel as if I deserve it, because I will never feel as if I’m good enough, but I think that’s the essence of the faith journey. We live in a world where we are constantly required to prove our worth, that we are good enough. It’s a world that functions in complete opposition to a God for whom you never need to prove your worth, who loves you unconditionally, ALL THE TIME! Not when you donate to charity, not just because you go to church, not because you read your Bible today, but just because you are YOU. We are all God’s children and He wants to get to know each one of us intimately, just as He wants us to get to know Him.

I’m not going to pretend that my fear and stress are gone forever, although they certainly were in that moment of ephiphany. Much like a compass, I need to make sure I am always pointing myself in the right direction, toward God. I am a less than perfect parent, but I will always love my children unconditionally and I will always try to do what is best for them. God is the perfect Father. I just have to keep reminding myself to trust Him, just as I want my children to trust me…I’ve always got their back.

There are times in our lives when we can’t see the beautiful painting that God is making of our lives, times when we experience great loss and pain and suffering that we don’t deserve. Life as a child of God, the blessings and the pain, are never about deserving, they are about bringing us closer to Him. Accepting His love. That’s my goal for this week, that and trusting in His plan for my life. No matter what happens, I can get through it when God has my back.

God bless and have a safe and healthy week.

Meredith

The House that God built.

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Has there ever been a time in your life when you have needed to make a major life decision? For us it came a about a year and a half ago; first when we decided to purchase a piece of property in the country, and then when we signed a contract with a builder.

I can’t tell you how much I agonized over the decision to build a new house. I couldn’t get rid of the yearning in my heart to move on, but I was so afraid that I was being selfish, and that I was focusing on needs of this world and not of God. I spent a lot of time in prayer, asking God either to take this yearning from my heart, or to help me to know that this was something he wanted for us and it was not just my selfish soul speaking.

Here’s what I have learned from this experience; God is faithful and, like any loving Father, he wants to help us if we’ll let him. I call our house the house that God built because things have worked out so perfectly along the way that I can’t see it as anything else. Our current house sold in just four days! Even our builder has commented on how seamlessly things have rolled along.

I am constantly thanking God for this tremendous blessing that I know I absolutely do not deserve. As we lay out and plot out each additional piece of what will be our new home, each piece fits into place perfectly, like a jig saw puzzle. All I can see is God’s hand, guiding us and our decisions to create a perfect home for us.

I’m not a perfect person. I yell at my kids, I don’t always read my Bible everyday, sometimes I curse and swear…I don’t deserve the blessings God has given me. But I guess that’s the point. This house has been as much of a spiritual journey for me as a physical one. God has used it to show me how much he doesn’t need me to “do” anything for him. All he needs is my faith. All he wants is for me to trust him, to put my life’s journey into his hands and walk with him always. It is such a special, special thing to come to know God in this way, to see him, not as a judge who will condemn, as many would have you believe, but as a loving Father who only wants what’s best for you.

God has tremendous power to transform hearts. Knowing God doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes feel depressed, overwhelmed, lazy, selfish…but God knows me intimately. He knows the darkest, most awful parts of my soul and he loves me anyway. I truly wish there was a way for me to share the overwhelming peace and joy and love that comes from truly knowing God and having him in your life with everyone I meet. I pray that those I love will someday come to experience a life walked with God. I simply couldn’t do it without him.

So, while it truly wasn’t my intention at the beginning of this blog to draw the parallel, but rather to speak to the blessings we’ve been given, I can see as I write this that the house that God built isn’t just the physical one we will be moving into in February, in many ways it’s me. I’m pretty sure his construction work on my soul is going to take more than a eight months though, I can almost guarantee it’s going to take a life time.

God bless you and keep you, into 2021 and beyond.

Meredith