December 18, 2007

• …”Blessed are they who are able to spend their lives doing the work they love, for they shall find heavenly happiness on earth.”

  I love the beatitudes, so please don’t think I’m mocking or taking our Savior’s words lightly. But this paraphrase is one that is true. There are some who “live to work,” and there are others who “work to live.” I’m sure you know what I mean.

  There’s the fellow who spends 40 hours a week, in a job that he either detests or merely tolerates, so that when the weekend finally arrives, he can do what he really enjoys. Maybe it is golf or fishing or mowing the lawn or rebuilding a ’57 Chevy…no matter, this is the best part of his life. This guy works to live.

  On the other hand, there is the woman who puts in 60-hour weeks at the hospital. She comes home bone-tired at the end of a 12-hour shift spent on her feet, endlessly striving to meet the needs of her patients, grieving when one does not make it, or rejoicing when a medical miracle occurs. This nurse has always known this would be her life, and she sacrifices much of her personal time to help patients. But there is a joy in her smile, a contentment deep in her eyes, for she is doing what she is meant to do. This woman lives to work.

  My husband is like the nurse. Stan has known from his earliest memory that he would farm; he never seriously considered doing anything else. When we were in college, he talked once about veterinary school, but that was just a brief fancy.

   Since he was six years old, he has worked on the farm, and 56 years later, he still loves it.

                                     

  He gets up every morning with a smile on his face (though there might be a crick in his neck from working cattle yesterday), talking about his plans, happy to bound out the door at sunrise and tackle a hard day’s work. He comes in at dark, worn-out tired, back aching, sometimes disappointed that he couldn’t save the cow with the prolapse or the calf with the broken leg, sometimes discouraged that the rain set in before they got the field of silage all chopped and into the silo, but never depressed. Underneath the fatigue and pain and occasional worry, there flows deep contentment because he has been doing what he loves and has done his best.

  Stan doesn’t know how to turn on a computer, but he can completely take a tractor apart and rebuild it. He doesn’t play golf, but he loves to get the men (and girls, if they want) in the family outside for an old-fashioned game of horseshoes, something he loved to play with his dad and grandpa. His idea of fine dining is sitting in the kitchen with our family, having our grandson help blow out Poppy’s candles.

                                 

  He doesn’t have a bass boat, but the farm pond is a great place to watch granddaughter Emma catch her first catfish.

                                                               

  Although we occasionally travel, it is to satisfy my wanderlust; his idea of a great trip is to drive two hours down into Arkansas to spend a day hiking in the mountains there.

                                                                          

  Or even better is a good ole farm auction…there might be a bargain he could pick up!

                                    

  But the very best thing of all is having all the family home, getting to enjoy quiet times with the children and grandchildren. On the farm, he can do that, even on a week day!

  

  Stan deeply appreciates the fact that his life’s labor is work that he enjoys. He loves the challenges, the successes, the natural beauty that is part of his everyday life.

                                                                            

   Long hours, aches and pains, and occasional failures are a small price to pay for the reward. He sits in his pickup and sees the cattle peacefully grazing on a hillside

                                      

  and knows that “Blessed is he who spends his life doing the work he loves, for he has found heavenly happiness on earth.”

  (Now don’t tell him I wrote this! He would be mortified, petrified and embarrassed. It’s just that he was so happy to head out to work cattle this morning in 19-degree weather, bundled up like a snowman, but excited to get on that horse…I just had to write about his blessed life)

  • 9:56 am
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