Getting at what's important

This farm. Oh how I love it. 

It has been a respite.

 I love coming home. I never tire of the view of the mountain or the meadows.

There is peace and beauty.
Even amidst grief.
 There is always much work to be done here. . .but somehow the beauty in this place makes all that ok.
 I long for a healing balm, for the pain within.
 Losing your son is like having a gaping hole. . .a festering sore.
The burn deep within my soul aches continually. How does a mommy say good bye to her son until eternity? Even when all I know, and believe with all my heart that this is God's plan. . .that He is in every single detail. . .even then, this is hard. It is hard to watch my children grieve. Longing for their big brother.  I watch Crystal grieve. . .I watch Elijah's friends grieve and long for him. . . and it all doesn't make sense. Ah, my farmer. Oh how he misses his son. How he longs to spend time with him. Yet, the farmer has had many years of wrestling with much out of his control and he has humbly bent his knee to the drought, floods. . .failed crops. . .brutal winters. His sweet surrender to his Savior is guiding me and helping.

Much of my day requires moment by moment clinging to what I know.
And what I know is; God is good. . .God is sovereign, and God knows. . .
 He knows my pain. Sometimes that does not give me peace. And that is where my faith meets the truth. If I claim to know God; then I will claim to know and trust him in the agony.

Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,
 the evidence of things not seen.

This faith is not something I can see or make sense of. . . 

This is the place I call home. This is where I have entered the covenant of marriage. Where "I do" took on meaning. This is where the generations before us laid bare the land to bring forth life. Where we have sweat and toiled, carving out a living.
This is where we have loved and this is where we grieve.
Things have not been easy.
Working the land for a living is faith producing.
But it's good.
For us.
And so we will continue to wrestle with grief and we will
continue to work the sod of this earth.

And we will continue to lift our hands as we continue to believe.
Psalm 30:5
Weeping may tarry for the night,
    but joy comes with the morning