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One Night On the Combine Current

Sometimes you hear that sentence "Is there a God?"  People have different ideas about this. I believe everyone has the right to their opinions.

I would like to paint a picture that I experienced one night as I rode on the outside platform of the combine. This is one of the things I love about harvest.  This happened just last week.

The sun was just starting to set by the time I reached the field in the wheat truck. I had to drop past the house for Stan's 7:00 lunch on my way back from the elevator. I would not be taking in any more loads that night, so I could do what I loved best.  Ride on the combine with my husband.

The field was way back from the road. You went through the pasture gate, and followed the rough trail back through the pasture. You were back there all alone. No houses, no artificial lights. Just you, your husband, the combine, the wheat field and creation.

Stan was just making his way up to the gate with a loaded bin when I made the u turn and turned off the engine. After he unloaded, I climbed aboard with the lunch and we were off. We made our way back through the gate and down to the uncut wheat, standing there in the twilight.

After a bit I said to Stan. "I want to ride outside" With that I opened the door and stepped out on the platform.

So there I stood, just outside the combine door. I stood there watching as the first day of summer drew to a close. The western horizon was a soft pink tint reaching up into the heavens until it met the light blue and blended there together. A few thin lines of dark blue clouds lay among the pink and yellows. The sun had set and a hush was falling over the field, the trees, the pasture and me. You could feel the fresh coolness of the night as it approached.

Hanging in the eastern sky, close to the horizon, was my beautiful magical, perfect ball of orange. The full moon just hung there in the dark blue of the heavens. As I watched it creep a little higher, turning a bright yellow, its moon beams shooting out all around it, making a pale yellow circle around it in the blackness of the sky. It just hung there, becoming the ruler of the night, turning the tall cottonwoods to a silhouette, and painting their leaves a glistening silver.

Its pale glow fell all around me as I stood there so quiet, so in awe of the beauty all around me. Of the stillness as all was going to sleep, of the coolness, of the freshness. All I heard was the hum of the combine engine and the squeak of the header as we made our way around the field.

I raised my eyes up and there way above me in that vast of blackness I saw the first star, twinkling down at me. Then I saw another...and another...way up there in the heavens that goes on forever.

A single light was shining down on the header of the combine as we slowly made our way through those golden heads of wheat. I was amazed of the hundreds and hundreds of heads that came into the combine, separating themselves from the head and falling as little kernels into the bin behind us.

I thought to myself..."Who can take a single little seed, and put inside of it a little plant that will sprout, and grow, and then from that one little seed, comes 10-12 kernels of wheat?" What a miracle, this thing we call life, really is!

Soon our bin was once again full and it was time to pull out of the field and close things down for the night. After dumping on the farm truck, my husband parked and turned off the engine.

I chose to just stay there on the platform for just a little while longer. All was quiet around me. All was dark except the pale light of that yellow moon over there in the east. Its light cast shadows on the ground and you could make out the dark outline of the trees as they stood there motionless.

I could hear frogs sing to me down beside the pond and out of no where a single coyote let out his lonely bark.

I looked up one more time into that dark black vastness of the great beyond and now saw millions of stars shining down on me. I took a deep breath of country air and descended the combine steps, climbed into the truck and we made our way back down that rough pasture trail and home.

Now you can answer that question for yourself. As for me I totally believe there is a God. Just knowing that He is up there in that great beyond, painting the beautiful picture we call creation, puts a kind of respect, of love, of reverence into my very being. It fills all this "country girls" heart with love for her little world of wonder.

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