The Earth is the Lord's

I grew up on a farm where my Dad taught me to love the earth as he did. He was a farmer at heart. He was a poor farmer so he ended up getting day jobs to be able to afford his delight of farming. Daddy was a surveyor for the County Conservation Board where he marked out waterways and terraces to protect the land from erosion. When that job ended he got a job for the State Highway Commission where he marked out roads and worked with other farmers who were affected by new roads being constructed through their farms.

Daddy's farm equipment was never quite up to par. He could only afford an older used tractor, and had older models of every other equipment he needed. Still he loved working the fields when he could. He loved being close to the soil and watching what the Lord brought forth from it. He was a good steward and caretaker of the land.

As a young girl I loved "helping" whenever Daddy would allow it, which was quite often. I would ride along and listen as Daddy answered my many questions. I grew to love the smell of the rich black earth of Marshall County, Iowa. My favorite job was picking up rocks from the fields. Nearly every year the plowing of the earth would bring stones to the top of the soil that would be hard on the equipment. So my sister and I would help in the field by picking up the rocks we could lift and point out bigger ones that could be picked up by the tractor and scoop. We had a rock pile at the back of the  barnyard that grew bigger every year.

Daddy's real talent was singing. And no song was more appropriate for him than, "The Earth Is The Lord's." He would sing it in church every spring. He shared his love of the earth with everyone there.

"The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters," (Psalm 24:1-2 NIV).