I know that many people do not like the time change, but I am delighted. I am a person with several strange quirks and one of them is waking up early. It is before 5 a.m. that I am writing this note to you. The house is quiet and still; the kids and the pigs are still sleeping, and now it gets lighter earlier! (yeah!)

I am not sure why I enjoy getting up early. I was that way when I was little. I remember always getting up before dark and tip toeing down to the basement to play farm way before mom and dad woke up. I had so much fun setting up fences to make pens differently everyday so I could move the toy pigs to a different spot in the barn. It was my own little farm that I could control, run and enjoy. It delighted me.

Every Fall during harvest it is hard not to sometimes get the same feeling. Everyday I rise up early and "play" farm. It is a lot more difficult and incredibly risky, and I have literally no control of any of it. The one constant is I choose for it to be fun. I enjoy it immensely. I delight in it as well.

I imagine if you and I would sit down together as I shared with you my journey of farming and business over the last 20 years, you probably would scratch and shake your head and ask the question, "You've enjoyed this?" Yes, it has been a very arduous journey with all kinds of twists and turns, but what makes me say it has been delightful is when I realize I am just a participant.

In Psalm 37:4 it says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." For the last 20 years I have had the privilege of being God's little farm. We have risen together every morning and snuck downstairs and started 'moving gates and fences.' It has been God directing the affairs of His farm of which he has allowed me to be the manager. I can't tell you how exciting it is to experience a real God that really cares about the desires of my heart and about the insignificant things I do everyday. It is DELIGHTFUL! He is DELIGHTFUL!

The journey has been everything but smooth and easy, but what great joy it has been walking with God and Jesus and seeing them make things happen. I do hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving and that you too can delight yourself in the Lord.

Blessings,
Chris