Hay!!

For the last week we have had friends out visiting our little ranch. It has been absolutely wonderful having them here. There has been time to catch up and fellowship and eat way too much ice cream - just like heaven on earth.

Today my buddies Mark and Carol and I were getting hay for our horses. We drove south a half hour and pulled into the ranch where they raised hay - that's where you get hay - from a hay ranch. You can't get it at the grocery store anymore. Guess it wasn't a big seller. But for this guy it sure is. He has a couple thousand acres of nothing but hay. We backed up to the barn and started loading bales just like we knew what we were doing. I could feel the cowboy swagger take hold of me as I shinnied up to the rail and asked him how much I owned him. (To read this properly, you have to read slowly and with a southern drawl).

When we got home, Mark and I cleaned out the shed and stacked the bales in the barn. It was actually fun. Not the hay part, but the hanging with a brother working with my hands stuff. Mark and I used to do activities like clean up houses and barns and workshops, always finding something to put our hands to, but it had been a long time. It felt so good to just be a guy with another guy. We didn't have to talk. We just worked, throwing bales like we were real men (of course Carol had thrown bales equally as well earlier, but throwing bales still made us feel like men).

The Bible says that where ever two or more are gathered, the spirit of God will be in our midst -that we would be the church when we were gathered - whether we were singing songs or throwing bales. Today I am glad to be the church, and to thank my Papa for the simple grace of some good physical labor.

Let's see you do THAT in a Sunday morning service!!