In the Skagit valley, a hundred miles north of Seattle, things were much worse than they were in the city. On top of a failing economy, it had been a dangerously dry fall and winter.
The barley seed that Timothy Dixon had laid earlier that fall for soil amendment had not germinated properly due to lack of moisture. This was bad news for his spring crops, which he would have to plant in a field that was almost completely leached of all it’s nutrients from being worked so hard the year before.
Walking the length of the field, he shook his head, thinking to himself “It’s all wrong”
Bending down to feel the barren earth roll between his fingers, a dry wind blew by. It seemed warmer than what remembered early spring ought to feel like in the Pacific Northwest. So far the season was off to a bad start, Timothy shuddered to think of what might happen if his crops were sparse this year.
He had lost his savings in the market crashed last year. In previous years, it was his savings that spared he and his family from loosing their farm in bad years like this.
But this year he was left like a lamb to the slaughter, just like all the other farmers in the valley.
Determined to try, he would turn the earth and lay the seeds just as he had every year. But he couldn’t make the rain fall, nor keep the wind from whipping through the dry valley, scattering weed seeds all over his crop and leaving his field in disarray.
Timothy had always been a praying man. He believed that it was his faithfulness to God that had kept he and his family safe from harm. Being a faithful man he looked to the sky as he spoke out loud, “I’m expecting good things from you lord, good things”. Then he turned on his heels to walk the length of the field, back home to his wife and family who had by now finished preparing the evening meal, judging by the aroma of roasted chicken that hung on the warm wind.
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