Winter Is Not Forever (27 page)
“He looks real good, Josh,” he said to me. “Soon he’ll be running at a full gallop again.”
I grinned.
“Well, I sure hope the ice and snow are off the ground before then,” I said. “Don’t want it to happen again.”
“Oh, it will be,” said Uncle Nat with confidence.
I shook my head. “Seems to me this winter has hung on and on,” I said soberly.
Uncle Nat looked at me evenly. I could read questions in his eyes. He pulled forward a barn stool and sat down.
“So, how’s it going, Josh?” I knew that it wasn’t just a passing question or a social pleasantry.
I let Chester drift back to his own stall, and I sank onto a soft mound of straw.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “It’s been a tough winter.” Uncle Nat nodded.
“Tough times make us grow, Josh,” he said simply.
I thought about that. I hoped I had done some growing.
“The farm’s doing well,” Uncle Nat went on, encouraging me to talk.
“Yeah.” I nodded, thinking of the good seed grain in the granaries, the fine stock in the pasture, and the tractor waiting for spring.
“You should be real proud of yourself,” Uncle Nat continued. “I know we all are.”
“You are? That’s good, but I still—”
“You unhappy with farming?” Uncle Nat’s question brought me up short.
“Oh no,” I was quick to inform him. “I like it—
love
it. It’s great to watch things grow—and change—and to know that you’ve been a part of it.”
“But something is bothering you.”
“Well, I mean—I still don’t know what God wants me to do in life. I expected by now that He would show me, but He hasn’t yet. By the time a fella is past twenty-two, he should have some clear direction about his life, he should know what he’s supposed to do.”
Uncle Nat gave me a playful poke on the arm. “I thought maybe you had girl troubles,” he teased. “Couldn’t make up your mind about which one of those fine ladies—”
“Naw,” I answered, “not girl troubles.” But I pondered Uncle Nat’s words.
“I wouldn’t even dare to choose a girl now,” I added defensively. “Not ’til I know what God has in mind for my life.”
“I see,” said Uncle Nat.
We were both silent for a few minutes.
“But you enjoy farming?” said Uncle Nat, as though to clear up a point. “You don’t feel any kind of guilt for being here for the last several years?”
“I
had
to be here,” I said, surprised that Uncle Nat didn’t understand that. “Grandpa and Uncle Charlie needed me. There was no one else to help them.”
“And with your hard work and good management you have turned the farm around—it’s better now than ever.”
I appreciated Uncle Nat’s lofty compliments, and I had to admit that there was some truth in what he said.
“And you think that the two men will be able to handle the farm now by themselves?”
It was a foolish question. Anyone could see that Grandpa and Uncle Charlie wouldn’t do much farming in the future.
“You know they couldn’t,” I said rather abruptly.
“So they still need you?” Uncle Nat left the question hanging in the air between us. I didn’t even try to answer it.
“Have you ever considered the fact that God might want you to go on farming? That farming might be His call for you?”
“
Farming?
” I paused for quite a while. Then I said, “Not really. I just supposed—” I shook my head.
“But you do enjoy farming?” pressed Uncle Nat.
“Sure I do. But it all seems kind of pointless. I’ve been trying hard to build up the farm so that it would be productive, make money.” I lowered my head and picked absently at some straw. “I had even promised God that the money I made would be used to support missionaries—like Willie. And now—now it all seems wasted.” My speech ended with a sob caught in my throat. Uncle Nat sat silently for several minutes until he could see that I had control of myself again.
“I suppose Willie’s early death seems a waste to you, too, Josh.”
Uncle Nat had tied up my confused feelings into a neat package. I said nothing.
“I don’t understand about Willie’s death,” went on Uncle Nat. “It is sad and it causes us all much pain, but it wasn’t wasteful. God doesn’t make mistakes, Josh.”
“That’s what SueAnn said the day we got word of his death. But, Uncle Nat, that’s really hard for me to swallow. Look at Willie—if anybody was being faithful to God, he was. So why did God let him die like that, so young, with so much ahead of him?”
Uncle Nat looked intently at me. “Josh, none of us can know for certain
why
these things happen. We may never know. Because God gave man a free will and he chose to sin, we now live in a world marred by sin—”
“But Jesus’ death sets us free from sin!” I protested.
“As individuals who trust Him—yes. From the
judgment
of sin. But as long as we live on this earth, we will have to live with the effects of sin.”
“Like evil?”
“Evil, and sickness, and accidents, and untimely death—all those things that don’t quite seem fair. We live in a sin-damaged world, Josh. People do get sick and die. We may not understand it, but we do know—”
“That God loves us and wants the best for us,” I finished for him. Somewhere, in the darkness of my grief and confusion, I felt a light beginning to dawn.
“We have to believe that or life has no meaning,” Uncle Nat agreed in a soft, firm voice. “Now, I don’t know the reason for what happened. But there is a purpose. God can make ‘all things work together for good’—those aren’t just words, Josh. I’m sure of that. Willie’s life accomplished what it was meant to accomplish. Willie was obedient to God. He was right where God wanted Him to be at the time that God wanted him to be there. He wasn’t running away; he wasn’t fighting God’s plan. He was obedient. God can always—and only—fulfill His plan for us when we obey Him—about the daily decisions and the big ones.”
Parts of Willie’s letter flashed back into my mind. That was what Willie was trying to tell me. All that was really important was that I obey God now, this very moment, at this very place. Tomorrow could be left in God’s hands.
Uncle Nat was talking again. “Do you feel that you are disobeying God in farming, Josh?”
“No,” I was able to answer honestly. “I really don’t.”
“Then if you are not disobeying Him, could it be that you are
obeying
Him?”
I stared at Uncle Nat, thinking. Then I began to chuckle. “It seems so simple,” I said, tossing a handful of straw into the air.
“Maybe it is. Maybe we’re the ones who make it complicated.”
I felt as if a great burden had suddenly been lifted from my shoulders. Uncle Nat and I hugged each other and then he held me away and said softly, “Josh, there are other missionaries who will still need to be supported. Camellia, for one.”
Tears filled my eyes. I guess there was no other missionary I would rather support than Willie’s Camellia. I nodded, too choked up to speak.
“You ready to go?” asked Uncle Nat.
I was ready all right. I had been spending too much of my time hidden away in the barn lately. Chester was doing just fine on his own. He didn’t need me that much anymore.
At least for now, God wants me to be a farmer—the best one possible,
I thought.
Unless or until He shows me something else …
And I had the big issue settled. I was ready to get on with some of the other decisions that a fellow has to make. I gave Uncle Nat a smile—the first in a long time, it seemed. We left the barn and I fastened the door securely behind me.
As we headed for the house, I lifted my eyes to study the farm I loved. A distinct feeling of spring filled the morning air.
Books by Janette Oke
A
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