Go Time

Photo courtesy of Kayla Dunlavey Photography

There’s a moment every fall when you can feel it in the air.

Things slow down for a brief moment as we settle back into the school routine.  The mornings get colder. The days get shorter. Then, the fields turn from green to gold, and suddenly, everything moves FAST.

It’s Go Time.

Around here, harvest doesn’t exactly ease into the calendar. One day you’re mowing, piddling around the garden, watching beans slowly fill out, and the next there are combines rolling down the road, grain carts crossing fields, trucks lining up at the elevator, and tractors running long after the sun has gone down.

Meals will be served on a tailgate in the field. 

Laundry might wait.

The dishes will definitely wait.

Because when the crops are ready, you go.

I’m guilty of expecting life to operate at one steady pace. I want everything to be balanced and predictable, with enough time for work, family, rest, hobbies, and all the little things I think I’m supposed to keep up with.

But that’s not really how we’re meant to live, is it?

Ecclesiastes 3 tells us there is “a season for everything, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”

A time to plant.

A time to grow.

A time to wait.

And a time to reap.

Farm life makes those words pretty tangible.

You can’t rush a seed into becoming a crop. You can’t convince the corn it needs to be ready because the weather forecast looks good this weekend. You plant when it’s time to plant, you nurture what you can, you wait, and eventually there comes a moment when the work that has been happening quietly is ready to be gathered.

And when that moment comes, you get to work.

Harvest is a beautiful reminder that not every season is meant to feel the same.  Some seasons are slow.  Some are busy.

Some are full of planting and preparing, when it feels like you’re putting in an awful lot of work and wondering if you’ll ever see the payoff.

Some are seasons of waiting, where all you can really do is trust that something is happening even though you can’t see it yet.

And then there are seasons of harvest.  The seasons when everything seems to happen at once.

The seasons when you’re tired but grateful. When the days are long but the work is worthwhile. When the chaos is evidence that something you’ve worked toward is finally coming together.

I hope that whatever season you’re in, you’re able to embrace it for what it is, give yourself a little grace, and trust that there’s a time and purpose for everything. I’m still working on that myself.

One thing farm life has taught me is that seasons change, whether we’re ready for them or not. Before long, the combines will be parked, the fields will be bare, and things will go quiet again. There will be time to breathe and tackle that laundry pile.

Until then, we’ll meet the season we’re in, dust and all.