I'll never forget my first job. It was a summer job working for my grandfather bailing hay on his farm in upstate NY. I couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 years old at the time. As far as I can remember, those were the most formative days in my entire life. I learned more about living the summer I spent on that farm than I did at any other time in my life.
Haying is hard work. There's no doubt about that, and the pay is nothing to write home about. That year I made a whopping 1/2 cent a bail for every bail we put in the barn. The value of the time spent there could not be measured in dollars and cents, though. What I gained was measured by what I lost, and what filled the vacancy left behind.
My grandfather taught me how to be a man, and he did so by letting me watch him at work. I watched as he backed his John Deere to the mower and hooked up the PTO. He told me to always be careful around PTOs because they can "suck a man in and twist him up." He taught me to keep my eyes open so as I wouldn't harm the machinery (sheenery, as he called it) or hurt myself or others around me. I watched him take pride in what he did, make use of every minute of daylight, and sleep well at night.
I remember cutting the fields and waiting for the hay to dry. All I wanted to do was hook up the bailer and start producing bails of hay. I dreamed of bails falling out behind, as my little mind calculated the earnings, a half cent, one cent, one and a half, two cent, two and a half, three . . . I learned patience as he told me that putting green hay in the barn would start a fire. So we sat and waited, "Is it dry yet, grandpa?" "Not yet." The little boy inside me couldn't quite understand, but I waited. "Patience, my boy, patience."
A few days later we backed up the John Deere again, but this time it was to the rake. The rake was a big red piece of "sheenery" with large round wheels encircled with sharp tongs that moved the hay into rows as we rode along. I'll never forget how careful my grandfather was to keep the rows straight; watching where he came from about as closely as he was watching where he was going. "Its not about where you're going, its about what you leave behind, my boy, its about what you leave behind."
The day had finally come. We backed up to the bailer and "hooked-er-up." Off we went, following the rows we had left behind a day earlier. Out came the first bail. "Ca-ching!" I was a 1/2 cent richer! Then the tractor stopped. My grand father climbed down, walked over, picked the bail up and threw it back down again right where it was. "Now you do it," he said. I took my new gloves out of my back pocket just as he had done, placed my little fingers under the twine and pulled with every ounce of strength I had, but it wouldn't budge. Then I watched as grandpa walked over to the machine and made an adjustment. "Whatcha doin?" I asked. "Making the bails smaller," he replied. "Never bite off more than you can chew, my boy, never bite off more than you can chew."
The next day we hooked up the wagon. Grandpa and I weren't the only ones working that day. He had hired a man from down the road to help. I didn't quite understand but kept my mouth shut (a technique that has proven to be quite effective over the years). Off we went. At first I walked along side and threw the bails up on the wagon while the "hired hand," stacked. I was doing fine until we got to the third tier. Then we switched. I must say I wasn't very comfortable with my new position because it was quite high and I was (and still am) a little uncomfortable with heights. The fact that I was standing on a very unstable surface traveling through a field didn't help the situation much. "Grandpa, don't you think I'm a little too young to be in such a dangerous position?" "Recognize the things you can't do and don't be afraid of the things you can do, my boy."
10 tiers high we arrived at the barn. The hired hand and I started the off loading process as fast as we could and threw the bails down on the ground below us. The fifth bail I threw landed a few inches from where my grandfather was standing. "Young man," he said "Always look out for people below you."
After the wagon was unloaded he cranked up the escalator that carried the bails to the loft. One by one we loaded them onto the escalator and watched as they slowly made their way up. Then it happened, the hired man who was now stacking in the loft, missed a bail which fell down a few feet from where I was standing. My grandfather looked at me and smiled, "Remember to keep an eye on the people above, too."
We were done, and boy was I tired. We jumped up on to the empty wagon and headed off to the house, or so I thought. As we passed by the old farm house, I asked the man beside me why we hadn't stopped. He said, "The job ain't done till the last bail is in the barn."
I don't know how many times we went through that process that hot, sweaty, itchy, summer. It seems like it lasted for ever. I think it was the hardest I had ever worked. I know it was the least amount of money I had ever made. If I remember right, I had made just enough that summer to buy a baseball glove. But, as I said earlier, the value of the time spent on that farm could not be measured in dollars and cents. What I gained was measured by what I lost, and what filled the vacancy left behind.
That summer, my grandfather worked the boy out of me and the vacancy left behind was filled with lessons that would serve as a model for the man I would become.
Over the next 4 weeks we will be going through a 4 part series entitled On the Job Training. It will be a study on the Old Testament book of Job that will deal with the thought processes of suffering. The overriding theme being, "God has to work something bad out of us before He can bring something good out of us."
Sometimes life is full of suffering: hot, sweaty, itchy suffering that brings us little to no monetary gain. We go through trials and testing for what seems like no purpose at all. This series is designed to help you see the bigger picture in the midst of your trial.
I hope you will join us on Sunday mornings, or follow the series via the web cast because sometimes the trials of life are in fact, nothing more than, training for something far greater.
Hot, itchy and sweating with ya,
PK
