The Growing SeasonSample

Folks tend to romanticize life on the farm. But ideals don’t always equal reality. Go ahead and search #farmhouselife on Instagram. Like seriously—take a scroll. Are you chuckling? Maybe rolling your eyes? Those photos are white and clean, with not a speck of mud in sight. 

Once I was trying to decorate my porch, and I spied a dead chicken in the front yard. The dog had gone to the henhouse, then toted his decaying prize to the front yard. Can you imagine if I had posted that scene on social media? I’m not sure my photos would inspire #farmhousejealousy in others.

Farmhouse is a word with two distinct connotations. In one sense it conjures images of homes bedecked with pristine white shiplap, barnwood accents, and clean mudrooms. But we farm gals know that this vision sits on a bed of HGTV lies. “Pristine” is not in our vocabulary. And, on occasion, we find dead, rotting animals in our front yard. This is a true farmhouse.

There is nothing easy about being a farm gal. This life brings extra blessings, but along with those blessings come extra mess, extra vacuuming, and extra mopping. We’ve all got the proverbial dead chicken in our yards.

This verse helps me stay sane: “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox” (Proverbs 14:4). This reminder encourages me to practice gratitude for the hard circumstances, the toilsome labor, and the straight-up yucky.

Let’s break down that verse. If we reverse the phrasing, we see that a manger is clean if it has no oxen. Simply put, a manger is clean if the barn is empty of life.

I don’t know about you, but that puts things in perspective for me. If I applied that concept to my house, it would mean “a house is clean if it has no people.” I’d rather have the people! A few hours of solitude is absolute bliss, but I wouldn’t sacrifice a lifetime of community for a pristine house.

I’m happy that God has allowed my home to be full of littles and a husband. I’ll take the #farmhousemess, because it means I have a crop of love inside my home and am blessed to be a caretaker for our earth. Instead of jealousy, I will practice gratitude.

What are your manger blessings? I bet you’ve got a ton too. So farm gal, let’s look at those posts on #farmhouselife as images of beautiful art and realize that our real lives are equally beautiful.