While most people are blessed with a computer and access to the Internet, I know by the number of handwritten letters I receive, not everyone has the capability to tap out an e-mail or click on a website and connect with the world.

Because of that, I’ve decided to share something that was e-mailed to me recently. It’s a passage written by Paul Harvey called “God Made a Farmer.” When I clicked on the link in the e-mail, it went to a video of several pictures of farming, farm families and pastoral scenes while Paul Harvey read his work.
I’ll admit it; I got a lump in my throat and tears welled  up as I listened to this great orator describe the beautiful attributes of farming and the gentle kindness of a farmer. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

And on the eighth day, God looked down on His planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker” – So God made a Farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk the cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board” – So God made a Farmer.

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild; somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to await lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon, and mean it” – So God made a Farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt, and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say ‘maybe next year.’ I need somebody who can shape an axe handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe straps, who at planting time and harvest season will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and, then, paining from tractor back, will put in another 72 hours” – So God made a Farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain, and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees first smoke from a neighbor’s place – So God made a Farmer.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to wean lambs and pigs and tend to pink combed pullets; who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadowlark.” It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners; somebody to seed, seed, breed and rake and disk and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk, and replenish the self-feeder and a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church.

Somebody who would bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing; who would laugh and then sigh, and reply with smiling eyes when his son says he wants to spend his life doing what Dad does – So God made a Farmer.

-Paul Harvey (credited to)

 The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Melissa Hart may write to her in care of this publication.