“The best yields always start as broken fields.” (From The Broken Way by Ann VosKamp)
The Lord spoke to my heart on March 20, 1997 as I drove past this lovely fresh-plowed field on U.S. Hwy. 231 South, just north of Cottondale, FL. A sudden burst of light, like a lightning bolt, seen out of the corner of my eye, caused me to turn toward this view and I felt the Lord say, “This is you!” i was surprised and delighted by the Lord’s Word that afternoon. I went home and began reading passages about “field”, “plowing”, “planting”, etc. in an effort to discern God’s will. I was 43 years old. My children had left home. My husband and I were empty nesters with hearts that had grown lukewarm toward one another. We had moved to a new town three years earlier and I felt very out-of-sync with community. I was miserable in a job that had me traveling long distances each week. I no longer knew who I was…..although I did know whose I was…..having been born again in Christ 5 years earlier. I was spending a lot of time looking in the rear-view mirror, feeling that my best and most productive years were behind me. But God had a plan for me….. plans for my welfare and not for harm, to give me a future with hope. (Jeremiah 29:11). It would not become clear all at once. And it would not be a quick or easy path. And in the difficult times that would come, I would hold to that promise…”a future with hope” and I would persevere through them. Now, 20 years later, I continue to be very grateful for that vision of a plowed field and God’s reassurance that fertile years and another harvest lay ahead…….
The photo above is the plowed field on US 231 north of Cottondale through which God spoke to my heart and redirected my focus. In retrospect, it appears that moment was the first expression of God’s call to ministry. It would be years later before it fully unfolded, but that is a memorable moment in which I heard God’s voice and nothing has been the same since.
1 Corinthians 3:9 “For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.”