Old Homesteads

"Hand me your pen, please," I said to my husband.

"What do you need my pen for?" He asked.

"I need to write something down quickly," I replied , reaching across the seat for the pen he always carried in his left shirt pocket.

"What do you need to write?"

"A poem just came to me and I need to get it down before it's lost." I told him.

"Well, if you can get inspired going across the flatlands of Kansas, you are some kind of writer," was his comment.

He handed me his pen and I hurriedly searched through my purse for a blank piece of paper.

"Girls, do one of you have a piece of paper I could have?", I inquired of our two daughters who were setting in the back seat.

"Here, Mom, you can have this one," daughter # 1 said, handing a piece of paper to me.

With pen in hand and word swirling through my mind like a tornado, I began to write.

We were traveling across Kansas headed to Colorado on vacation. The trip across these badlands had been pretty boring so far as scenery goes. But, suddenly, as I looked across the wide expanse of land, I saw an old silo standing near an old homestead. The graying wood of the old home and the broken out windows brought these words to mind.............

Old homesteads standing,
Gently framed against the sky.
A reminder of the past,
Of exciting days gone by.

As you see them your minds wonders,
Of the pasts those old homes hold.
Could they whisper but a word or two,
What stories would unfold?

The flatlands that surround them
The waving fields of grain,
The barns, the sheds, the fields of corn,
Whipped by winds across the plain.

The silos standing straight and tall
As watchtowers in the night,
Are empty now of golden grain
Yet, sparrows take their flight……….

From windows broken out by winds,
hat whipped those prairie lands.
From crumpled roofs built long ago
By strong, determined hands.

These pioneers of old were brave,
And strong and mighty men
Who came to conquer untamed lands
Inhabited then by Indians.

From break of day to dark of night,
A father with his son,
Would till the cool, dark sodden dirt,
For work must then be done.

A mother’s work began at dawn,
The young ones giving chase,
They’d race each other down the stairs
To reach the warm fireplace.

How peaceful must have been their lives,
How close the family ties,
With time to work; yet time to play
‘neath God’s own clear blue skies.

As I finished the sloppily written poem, I continued to wonder about the family that lived there. How many hardships did they face? Were there a lot of children? Were they a God-fearing family that taught their children about the love of their Maker? And, I wondered how my family would have fared had it been us who lived in the solitude of this land.

I am reminded that God created this flat land just as he had created the hills back home. He had loved these people just as He loved my family and He had a purpose for their lives just as He has a purpose for the lives of my loved ones.

It matters not where we live or when we lived, if we submit ourselves to the leading of the Holy Spirit, He will direct our paths.

" Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6NIV