Month: June 2021

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The protector

“The righteous who walks in his integrity— blessed are his children after him!”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭20:7‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Being a father of two daughters, I understand the duties and responsibilities of protecting and providing for my children. Your children become your world and your purpose for living. Their happiness becomes your happiness and their sadness becomes your sadness. Protection of our children becomes our top priority.

I have many stories from years on the farm, but one story reminds me of a protective father.

The story took place when I was 13 or 14 years old. My family raised cattle on the farm at this time and it was time to take weaned calves to the market to be sold. My dad, my granddad, and I started the day sorting the calves that we wanted to sell from the rest of the herd. As we worked on sorting the calves, the bull and father to the calves watched us intensely all morning. Once the sorting was completed and the calves to be sold were loaded onto the livestock trailer, we prepared to pull the trailer to my grandparents’ house before leaving for the livestock market. I drove the pickup pulling the trailer. As I pulled up to the main gate, the bull that had been watching us was blocking the gate. I honked the horn and yelled for him to move but he stayed put. I got out of the pickup and moved toward him to get him to move, he turned and looked at me but never moved. I walked back to the pickup to honk the horn again and move the pickup a little closer to him. While I was walking back to the pickup, the bull moved to the left side of the livestock trailer and with his body pushed on the trailer. He then went to the other side and did the same. As he was doing this, I ran to open the gate. By the time I got back to the pickup, he had returned to block the gate opening. He continued the back and forth blocking the gate and rocking the trailer for ten minutes until my dad came and helped me get him to move. For the next two days, the bull stayed by the main gate waiting, he was never the same after that.

That’s the way it is with dads, we want to protect our children from all of the suffering, the pain, and the disappointments of the world but we can’t. With each event in our children’s lives that cause pain, suffering, worry, stress, and disappointment, it changes us because it changes our children and we are never the same. Dads work hard to protect and to provide, knowing all along the impossibility to fully achieve. Yet, we do it anyway.

On this Father’s Day, tell your dad that you love him and thank him for all that he does for you, but mostly thank him for loving you more than he often loves himself because he blames himself for all of your shortcomings.

To all the dads out there, thank you for all you do and Happy Father’s Day from us here at #welcome2serenity. Thank you for visiting.

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Protecting the Livestock

O’er the ramparts we watched,
Were so gallantly, streaming?And the rockets’ red glare
The bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there.

The Star-Spangled Banner Songwriters: John Stafford Smith / Francis Scott Key

On the farm, we deal with a lot of problems from weather to equipment breakdowns to predators. Dealing with a predator is a battle. The predator is out to take something from us, usually livestock for food. But there are predators like raccoons, who take not for food but just to take and destroy. Recently, we have had raccoons preying upon the chickens.

Thinking about flag day and our country’s flag, I thought how our country has always had predators as well. These predators have come to take our freedoms and our feelings of peace and security. Just like with the farm, we fight these predators continuously to protect our way of life. It’s a never ending battle to preserve our country, our freedoms, and our rights.

With the farm, the only way we know when we have won a battle is our livestock is still there. With our country, we look for our flag. For as long as our flag is still flying we have won another battle. Our flag is a symbol of our freedom and a country filled with brave and determined men and women who will not give up the battle.

So on this flag day, fly old glory high and with pride for who we are as a nation. Our country is not perfect but it is one of the best. Thank you for visiting and #welcome2serenity.

To view our photo of the week, please go to https://welcome2serenity.com/photo-of-the-week/

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Life’s repairs

“And to the masons and the stonecutters, as well as to buy timber and quarried stone for making repairs on the house of the Lord, and for any you outlay for the repairs of the house.”
‭‭2 Kings‬ ‭12:12‬ ‭ESV‬‬

There are always repairs to be done on the farm. Some are small and simple, such as replacing the tractor’s broken battery cable. Others, like clearing fallen trees and rebuilding fences after a major storm, are large and complex. Some require help, and others require none.

In life, we have to perform repairs. Whether it is repairing a broken friendship or a life affected by divorce or personal loss, we all face daily repairs. However, God assures us that we have his help and support through all of it — every break and every repair.

The keys to every successful repair are having the right tools, the right help, and the right knowledge. Some repairs require either starting over or replacing with a new item. Being human, it is often hard for us to give up what we have grown to trust and had in the past. To move forward, we have to start over because that is the only way to truly repair the break.

So keep working on those repairs, you never know what you will discover about yourself and how you will expand your knowledge for future breaks and repairs. Thank you for visiting and #welcome2serenity where we are all about repairing broken things.