I choose to make merry in the day to day details of life, knowing my Father works all things together for my good and His glory. [1]
Mooo, mooo! Catherine’s sonorous exclamations of pleasure and satisfaction ring across the lush pastures and echo through my kitchen. What joy for her to move from the grass eaten-to-the-ground measure of land beyond the barn to the front pasture fragrant with new opportunities to munch clover and find satisfaction. Catherine’s merry moos and belches of pleasure reflecting her satisfied appetite and her anticipation of birthing a new steer in the months ahead are contagious.
Tom, our proprietary rooster, calls out to the dawn with chortles of joyful announcement that the sun has risen. It’s a new day–he has conquered all: 30 hens to whom he consistently sends out flags of dominance, backyard pestilence instantly devoured, and the stranger who dares breach his territory. A few of our hens emit a startling loud and obnoxious cock-a-doodle-do with each laid egg. “Come rejoice with me, I have produced an heir!” they seem to proclaim.
Mark and I have found so much joy and delight with our farm–from the oddly formed squashes, peppers, and tomatoes that seem to defy normal symmetry to the myriad creatures living on our property. We find time to share our daily encounters: our neighborhood skunk, oak tree squirrels who seem to get fatter by the week, pesky orange foxes salivating over our hens, cute garden frogs, fat grubs, and the barn mouse who chewed holes into Mark’s motorcycle bags to form her nest now harboring four new offspring! Mundane, yet what a counterpoint to full-time ministry.
“Don’t you think Mark’s plate is too full?” one might ask, between the farm, fitness, family, and ministry? Yes, it’s brimming with each plate’s porcelain imprint hidden by portions of nutritious food, all equally important and valuable.
Proverbs 17:22 has been an echo of our disciplines: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Farming this land has brought us respite and release–palpable fruit from our day-to-day labor. The labor is intense, daily, persistent, yet so rewarding. The joys of each animal, baskets overladen with produce, incredible sunrises, bonfires, and cookouts all make our hearts delight in the provision of our Father, El Elohim, Creator God, who never stops giving.
Yes, we have daily disappointments too–chickens snatched by clever foxes, backed-up plumbing, broken fences, slow sales[2], and mechanical failures. Yet, we make merry in the midst of labor, unanswered prayers for healing and salvation, coupled with days, weeks, months of waiting to rejoice in the anticipated harvest. We choose life: look for delights in the day-to-day mundane, we change our perspective from what some may regard as drudgery to seeing opportunity, to wrapping ourselves in peace in what may be seen as unfavorable circumstances. In general, I do not enjoy repetitive tasks. If I truly believe that God works all things together for my good and His glory, a burden of heaviness is replaced by a mantle of praise.
I find freedom in the finished work of Christ on the cross. I am free to rejoice, free to sleep at peace, free to believe that years of unanswered prayers will be answered in God’s time. I am free to recognize and see beauty all around me. With Job I declare, “Though He slay me, yet I will trust in him.”[3] When I give my burdens to Christ, I can rest and rejoice and make merry.[4]
It’s like a reciprocating motion–in and out, back and forth, each stroke meeting its complement. I rejoice because I am free. I am free because I rejoice. I use my tongue to declare the goodness of God, the provision of God, the healing power of God, the fantastic creative nature of God, and in these declarations, my soul finds peace, rest, and joy, the space to make merry and delight.[5] We made a choice this year to discipline ourselves to stop complaining about the very things for which we are praying.
I rejoice that my fingers can once again use a computer keyboard to type out messages, emails, and essays. I delight in the opportunity to walk my morning orders downhill to the mailbox, observing hand-painted skies my Father arranged just for me, and I allow my ears to pick up the melodies of spring. I duck into the hen house to collect eggs on the hour so that hens who have experienced their deliciousness won’t reduce the day’s harvest. I have been up since 3 a.m., so it’s about time to snatch a quick morning nap with our kitty, Lord Peter, who will hop up on the bed and purr with me as we doze. When Mark returns home from his multifaceted day, we’ll tend to the animals, dig around in the garden, sit underneath spreading trees sharing the day’s delights, and later smack our lips as we dine from our freezer full of beef,[6] and frequently turn around to depart for yet another engagement.
God is so good and His mercy endures forever. Great is His faithfulness. We can choose to make merry.
[1] Romans 8:28 ESV And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.
[2] My artisan jewelry business, Magpie Madness Jewelry, has experienced uncanny algorithm regression this year, hindering sales.
[3] Job 13:15 ESV.
[4] Psalm 55:22 ESV Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.
[5] Proverbs 18:21 ESV Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
[6] We raise our own grass-fed Angus steers and harvest one every one to six months.
The featured image is courtesy of Julie Jablonski and is used with her kind permission for Cultivating.
Mary has cherished life-long literary dreams coupled with a passion for ministry, all of which lead her to study English literature and later theology and counseling in seminary. She has been designing artisan jewelry for nine years while homeschooling son Ian and daughter Julianna. After 14 years of ministry in San Diego she and her husband Mark Miller, along with their teenagers and cat, Lord Peter Wimsey relocated to Charlottesville, VA where they enjoy farm life, chickens and all. Mary enjoys off-the-wall humor, gardening, cooking, and curling up with anything penned by Dorothy Sayers, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, or Jane Austen.
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