I teach children’s church one Sunday each month.  All summer long we’re talking about praying and giving each kid a set of hands on which to write prayer requests for the week.  The hands are a physical reminder to pray.  I didn’t teach last week, but the Little Farmer came back from his lesson with this as his prayers for the week:

“Wheat doesn’t sprout, brings good price”

No need for a children’s bulletin, this is the kind of stuff the Little Farmer draws during quiet time at church.

We had rain every day for a couple weeks when dad is typically harvesting wheat.  He was concerned that it might sprout.  The Little Farmer must’ve heard that speculation.  The price prayer kind of threw me, we don’t really talk about that a lot.

This week before church I was up early and getting ready to teach the middle school Sunday school class, cleaning house, making bacon, and other normal energizing stuff.  My plans were derailed when I went to the garage and the kid farmer kind of “split” this tractor by himself.

Why wait for an adult when you’re five and truly believe you can fix it?

The chain came off the sprocket a month ago, but he suddenly decided that he wanted it fixed immediately, so he took the covers off to get to the chain.  He knew what needed done, he just lacked the muscle to do it.   What’s ironic to me is that he’s a little shy on the academics compared to others his age (kindergarten testing didn’t go great), but he’s not far off from being more mechanically capable than me.  I can’t wait for him to be able to fix stuff that I need help with!  This my friends is an great example of nature versus nurture.  Nature is really kicking in!

Of course I would think this is cool, please watch the video and give it a “thumbs up” on YouTube.  Each view means another pound of pork for the food banks!

Ohio hog farmers have been actively involved in the fight against hunger for years, donating more than 750,000 meals of nutritious pork to Ohio foodbanks since 2009.

This Easter, the Ohio Pork Producers Council (OPPC) is making it easy for everyone to do their part to make sure that no child, adult or senior in Ohio goes without the basic necessity of food.

OPPC would like to celebrate “The Year of the Farmer,” along with generous supporters like the Ohio Corn Marketing Program, Farm Credit Mid-America and many Ohio hog farmers and businesses. OPPC has committed to honoring “The Year of the Farmer” in the state of Ohio. Each time someone visits Ohio’s hog farmers on YouTube to watch this fun “Pork from Fork to Farm” video, OPPC and its partners will donate one pound of ground pork to Ohio’s foodbanks.

“We can’t say enough about what this support means to the hungry people our foodbanks serve,” said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks. “By taking a few moments to view this video, you will be helping us to provide Ohio-raised, Ohio-produced pork to people in need, some of the most protein-packed food we are able to provide all year. Plus, you will be supporting our state’s outstanding agriculture industry—the people who work hard to feed all of us, every day.”

Thanks to the donations from Farm Credit Services of Mid-America, the Ohio Corn Marketing Program, and many other farmers and businesses, OPPC can provide up to 35,000 pounds of ground pork to foodbanks in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Toledo.

OPPC is proud to continue its commitment to fighting hunger in Ohio and encourages other agricultural leaders and everyday Ohioans to join them.

Take action against hunger with just one click by viewing the video today.

I like setting goals, but most of all I value realistic, practical, applicable to real life goals.  I accomplished one of those goals recently.  For the first time in my life I read through the Bible in a year.

Front of Bible in a Year reading plan

The other side of the plan to read through the Bible in one year

I wanted to set myself up for success so I read ahead in the early months of the year because I knew it would be harder for me to keep the pace in the spring.  This plan included four readings six days a week.  Each day there were two old testament portions, a small part from the gospels and another new testament reading.  Some days I would only read a few chapters from one book because I thought that helped me to better focus at the time.  I used the plan as a general guide of where I needed to be to get done in one year.

I’m positive that I can’t identify all of the blessings that have come through completing this commitment, but I’m confident there were many.  So, if you want to make a resolution that will make a difference in your life in 2013, I encourage you to find a plan to read through the Bible in a year and get after it.

Am I the only one that knows I should be thankful this time of year (and always), but haven’t really felt deep down truly grateful?  I could post some stuff everyday on Facebook and make life sound great.  I could give a nice speech and easily offer comments about the people and things for which I’m grateful.  Then when I get home all alone and quiet, in the deep, down center of my soul I just haven’t felt that grateful lately.  There’s just a lot of hard, bad stuff in this world that I’m allowing to feel bigger than the good things.

There’s got to be somebody out there who can relate?

As I look back over what I’ve learned in the last four years these are the critical points where I choose to wallow in self-pity and reverse progress, or I make the conscious choice to move forward towards becoming healthy and whole.  Just because I feel like my problems are big doesn’t mean my feelings are right.

I’ve spent some time praying about it this week.  I understand that I’m not being logical.  I’ve tried to beat down the bad and bring up the good.  The Little Farmer learned a great song from Vacation Bible School a couple years ago and the tagline is, “Let’s have an attitude of gratitude.  Thank God for everyday.  Let’s have an attitude of gratitude.  Thank God for everything.”  Yes, I do make him sing it and I sing it to myself.

I’ve been listening to a great sermon series by James MacDonald called “Big God, small me”.

I think another thing that will help me re-focus again is talking less and listening more to others.  Like today, the Little Farmer and I just crashed a really nice family’s Thanksgiving dinner.  Three years ago on Facebook my friend’s mom posted something to the effect of “Anybody is welcome at my house for dinner.”  I didn’t have plans, so guess what I did.  I’ve gotten a personal invitation each year since.

This year was cool, because their daughter brought some of her neighbors from the Chagrin Falls area.  The man grew up in communist Poland, the woman in England and their son is a first grader and pure American it appears.

This will shock you – pork came up as a conversation topic around a turkey filled feast.  The man shared how he remembered helping butcher hogs growing up and he said they used every part but the hair.  The conversation transitioned to growing up in a communist country.  He said sometimes they had nothing for dinner and they would go into the woods and try to find mushrooms or berries.  Food distribution was handled by the government.

This dude isn’t too much older than me.  Listening to him for three minutes reminded me I’ve never come close to having legitimate problems like that in life.

Another tactic I recommend to beat down the bad and bring up the good is referring to scripture.  That’s how we’ll close.  1 Thessalonians 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.