Pausing to Plant a Word of Thanks

By Brenda Black

Immersed in a sea of people, I pin-balled my way through a crowded corridor headed to a luncheon. My reason for being one among the masses – to attend the 2014 US Agriculture Outlook Forum. In a hotel in Arlington, VA, situated in the heart of US history, I rubbed elbows with the world. As I dined on tasty American cuisine, my eyes were opened to just how blessed we are to live in this country and enjoy affordable food. Not because of the plate in front of me presented with flare and a high price tag. My persuasion came from table conversation.

Over chicken parmesan, crisp zucchini and linguini, I chatted with an exporter from Sri Lanka and the senior vice president of one of America's largest chicken processing companies. They were pleased with the entree, of course. By way of introductions, they soon learned they were surrounded by cattlewomen and the conversation took an amiable turn toward protein competition and consumption around the globe.

We talked cuts and taste, price and production. We bantered over flavor and variety of options. But I fell silent when the exporter began to explain the true limitation of protein in his home country. When a friend at the table asked about by-products, he looked perplexed. We thought for a moment there was a language barrier that needed bridging. She took another run at it and asked “What do you do with what's left of the chicken?”

“All that's not eaten is the feathers,” he answered soberly. One family may dine on a half-pound chicken for a week. Everything but the feathers is cut into tiny pieces and thrown into a pot of soup. If a child enjoys two bites of protein, it is a luxury.

The VP chimed in to validate the minimal consumption. His company shrink wraps product for the Sri Lankan market that defy our “super size” mentality. Packages ship to sell that have a single chicken wing. That's all some families can afford.

My lunch took on a heavenly form and I felt thankful and blessed beyond words.

We take so much for granted. Our grocery stores are brimming with ample and affordable provision. Fast food drive throughs, convenience stores, family cafes and high end fancy restaurants beckon us from small towns to big cities. From farmer's markets to popcorn at the movies, we have choices. Food is available and variety attainable. Yes, we are blessed to be able to feed our families more than one bite of meat a week...thanks to the American farmer.

Once upon a time in this country, raising food was all about survival for the immediate family. These days it is about health and nutrition, variety and abundant provision. The faithful farmers come in all sizes and grow everything from snow peas to pigs, broccoli to beef. Farmers are a passionate stock and dedicated to the bigger picture.

Farming is rooted in history and tradition, but has grown to encompass tremendous diversity in order to meet consumer preference and price points. In a move from feeding only one's family to feeding the world, farmers have become more efficient, more conscientious, more conservative, more capable than ever.

Photo courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/backroadprod

As spring arrives this week and the grass begins to green, notice the wheat fields changing hue. Appreciate the deep furrows of fertile soil turned beneath a plow. Savor the smell of a steak on the grill. And remember what a great blessing is agriculture in America.

The Little Girl Within

By Brenda Black

Just what I didn't need to hear: “You are no spring chicken.” For the record, I never wanted to be a chicken. I'd much rather be a frisky filly or a bouncing bunny or a frolicking puppy. So what if I'm not as young as I used to be. Nobody is! As a victim of chronic pain for the past two decades, I've gotten used to the aches of aging quite prematurely. But, even as the body and mind tally signs of wear and tear that come with chronology, my spirit remains eternally childlike.

Several of my much younger friends have lately begrudged the idea of crossing thresholds into adulthood that leave childhood privileges out of reach from that day forward. Big people responsibilities and careers have taken the place of youthful fun and games. As a consolation, I penned some words of encouragement to one such morphing young adult.

“I've been at this grown-up thing far longer and I still see myself as a little girl many days. Never lose that inner child -- the joy over simple things in life, the fascination and curiosity about anything new, the innocence, the faith, the creativity. We were designed from the beginning to be daughters of a King and that doesn't change with time or grey hair. I still want to run and dance and climb and sing and hold a tadpole or wade in the creek. I still love kittens and puppies and butterflies. I love the smell of a new box of crayons and given the chance will use them. I giggle with my girlfriends, sometimes think boys are the weirdest thing, feel insecure, frightened, left out. On the other extreme, sometimes I'm invincible, completely abandoned and leader of the pack. God grows us and life changes, but the great things from every phase in this life should be cherished and continued. And someday -- as grandmas, we have all the makings of being some child's best friend because we never lost sight of the little girl within.”

My own counsel got me thinking that I spend entirely too much energy on being grown up and far too little on being child like. It actually may have hit me a little before I doled out this sage old advice. Yeah, pretty sure it crossed my mind when I was jumping up and down, pumping my fist heavenward at a Winter Jam concert last week. Seated among friends in like stations of life and next to my 20-year-old son, I rocked the house with the youngest in attendance! If we would have had more room, my gal pals and I would have shown them just how much fun adults can muster! I waltzed in the house at 2:00 a.m., still singing TobyMac songs, albeit in a whisper, since my husband was sleeping like other normal adults at that hour.

Oh the joy that comes from being carefree like a child. It's the pleasure of getting closer to God than you ever can know as a rigid, guarded, prim and proper adult. One of the reasons Jesus likes children, I believe, is because they don't care what anybody else thinks. When Jesus walked this earth, they just crawled up in His lap and laughed and loved on the King of Kings. I wonder if the Lord wouldn't be thrilled if, as lumbering, weary adults, we crawled up in that lap again – spiritually speaking – and laughed and loved like Jesus and the children.

Seeing the world through a child's eye has tremendous benefits. Seeing the Lord through a child's eye brings superior pleasure. It is when we are most vulnerable, we are most teachable. We trust more completely, we love more honestly, we dance and grin and move more freely. And that makes God and us more happy.

“At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, 'I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.'” (Luke 10:21)

I love that! I want to live in such a child-like way that I make my God and my Savior smile. I want to live more like a spring chick than an old, molting hen. And I have good reason to set such goals. Being a child of God is a gift. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1a-1b)

No matter how old I get, I want to always nurture the little girl within. I want to keep her innocence as much as possible, encourage her creativity, bolster her faith and keep her young heart forever in love with the Lord. For, one day, I will see Jesus. I plan on perching this little girl right in His lap and hugging Him. And then, we're going to get up and dance!

Life in an Easter Basket

By Brenda Black

Easter: Bountiful baskets filled with pastel painted eggs, soft bunnies and girly bonnets. Easter: A solitary tomb filled with a broken body, grave clothes and surrounded by weeping friends. Easter: Death by chocolate. Easter: Life through the Lord's sacrifice. Easter: Spring blossoms that bud and grow and fade. Easter: Life springing from death, without end.

In the midst of all the frivolity, Easter is empty without Him. Christ's Resurrection makes life possible and pretty eggs purposeful. The death, the burial, the Resurrection are the truly beautiful pieces of the Easter picture. For, without His triumph over death, spring would never come and joy would not exist.

“Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?'” (John 11:25-26)

Christ IS, not was, the resurrection and the life. He is not bound by time nor isolated in history as some long ago event that now dims in importance in the grand scheme of things. He IS LIFE! That was then. It is now. It is forever truth. No man-made traditions will alter this fundamental axiom. Time cannot diminish its significance. He IS LIFE and belief in HIM is life instantaneous and eternal all in one sweeping, miraculous moment.

If He is life, then those who place their trust in Christ, get life right here and now and they receive life later. This blessed gift is ongoing and forever. So if the body lives, there is life; and if the body dies, there is life!

Once this reality is internalized, life as we know it takes on an entirely different focus. Sure, there's the hope of heaven – a place so magnificent, the only way we can begin to grasp its grandeur is to compare it to something tangible on earth. So we hear of mansions and streets of gold, flowing rivers and gates made of pearls. But even those superfluous claims pale to the reality of a place beyond our wildest dreams. It's a paradise only visible when we are perfected and able to see the entire spectrum of color and hear and taste it as well.

We think about such a place after life with longing, but settle for whatever comes our way down here. Life in Christ is not a consolation prize to claim in the far distant future. It's life abundant and full of surprise right here, right now! Jesus didn't go to the cross to make life tolerable. He came to seek and to save what was lost and He came to give life abundantly. It won't always be daffodil dandy nor bunny fluffy, nor peeps sweet. But it will be good and filled with purpose and joy and peace.

When John the Baptist heralded His coming, this is what he said, “'A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, “I am not the Christ but was sent ahead of him.” The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less...

“'The one who comes from heaven is above all;...For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life...'” (John 3:27-36 selected)

A basket-FULL of life!

Bracket Busters and Other Troubles

Bracket Busters and Other Troubles
By Brenda Black

Take one spring weekend in the middle of March. Mix in, basketball upsets, a foot of snow and historic votes and what do you get? Failed dreams, frozen tundra and bum-fuzzled fans and citizens. Brackets busted and hearts broken. Spring fever escalated and snow plows shoveling. A country divided and more and more fear and distrust for anything that has to do with government.

Hello, spring! Not quite its typical entrance, but then, what is normal any more in America. Actually, the March madness–turned–insanity is a fairly good picture of our country these days. A blizzard on the tail of 70-degree sunshine is pretty zany. But accusatory slurs, screaming oppositions and a vice president who whispers profanities into the ear of our nation's president in front of the media very near a microphone is absolute stupidity! No wonder so many natives are restless and feel ashamed of the way our nation is headed. If the high offices can overlook simple respect and decency when the world is watching, who knows how badly they misbehave off-camera.

And speaking of poor judgement, how about this comment from a radio DJ this weekend. The radio personality was quizzing his guest about a legal incident. His question: “If a guy wearing a ski mask and carrying a gun goes into a convenience store to rob it, but since the attendant is not there, he aborts his plan, is he still guilty of attempted robbery?” The law student defended his answer of yes and then the DJ proceeded to enlighten his listeners with this idiotic advice. “If you're going to rob a store, at least do it right or don't do it at all.”

Did he just condone robbery as long as you do it “right”? What's the right way to hold up a clerk? Shoot first, ask questions later. Take all the money and a hostage? Good grief! This is just another example of March madness to the nth degree!

In case any of the people in Washington are listening, we have bigger problems than any sweeping, uncertain health care reform can fix. Our society is sick from the grotesque and growing disease of selfish disrespect and careless indifference. America's cancer can't be fixed with chemotherapy. It has to be healed with humility.

This spring, a few things need cleaning to alleviate the madness that is escalating – the heart of man needs to be swept of selfishness. And the mind of man must be cleared of rubbish. It's time to get back to the basics of human decency and good manners. It's time to act with integrity instead of shoving our own policies onto others. It's time to deny ourself and see the bigger picture.

I have a terrible spring fever not only for sunshine to warm the air and daffodils to bloom. I have a maddening need to believe that this land of the free and home of the brave is not ruined.

I'm glad Easter is upon us soon. Maybe, just maybe, we'll look to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and be reminded what real leadership looks like. Love at all cost. Humility and heart. Christ set the example that breaks all brackets of sinful selfishness. It casts all votes for what is best, not what pleases the elite. The Lord's sacrifice blazed a trail to the throne of grace. It did not leave us out in the cold with no hope.

Easter is the perfect time to take a good, long look into the heart and search the mind. Because if ever we needed a Savior, it is at this moment in our history, when men are as arrogant and rude as those who spat upon Jesus and cursed Almighty God. We are crucifying Christ all over again in America. He died once for all time, but unless we repent, each one in honest humility, we are without a future or standing.

When Jesus looked down upon his tormentors, he pleaded compassionately, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) We know better today.