Hello, God. It's me, Mara.

You know, Lord, it’s April — a new season has arrived! There were new baby animals all over our prairie farm/ranch when we were kids back home. The birds were back. The trees were budding. Tulip, and daffodils and some lovely prairie flowers were up and in bloom; if no tulips at our house, they were at Aunty’s house in town. Spring plowing/seeding had begun. April is a new lease on life!

The countryman will tell you he’s turning the soil to prepare the seedbed so he will be ready to plant oats or corn or grain or wheat. He tells only half the truth. Spring plowing is to prepare the soil, yes, but it is also to prepare the man. He, too, has to get the winter out of his bones. He has to get the sunshine into himself again and also the wind. He has to know April if he is to know May, June, July, August and September.

So, the countryman is busy plowing his land and as he does, he beholds the spring! He can feel the morning; he hears the red-wing blackbirds, the meadowlarks and even some brave doves. And as he’s plowing, he can smell the fresh-turned earth. Don’t some of us former country kids also remember those springtime sounds and smells?

As the countryman plows, the mild sun beats down, the robins strut; the calves cavort across the greening pastures, the brook across the way prattles and shimmers. The countryman is working the soil and the season once again. The earth belongs to him again, but he also belongs to the earth and both belong to You, oh Lord.

We read in Genesis 8:22, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

Love, Mara