A Warm Handshake

It was the end of a very hot and dusty day. The walk up the hill from the ranch common yard toward our home seemed especially long. Before entering the house, I pulled off my boots and brushed the afternoon dust off my pants. Our guests were already arriving for the evening. We host a weekly group that joins together for dinner, a few songs, and a simple Bible teaching from Troy. The sense of family among the groups feels as welcome as a heartbeat. 

Everyone there knows that it’s a time when the broken find healing, the weak find support, and the joyful scatter gifts like seeds of pure gold. When we join together as a team, a family, our feeble hands become strong. It is our favorite time of the week.

After saying grace and releasing hands, hungry fingers quickly found their way into every bowl. My little kitchen was filled with dusty bodies bumping and milling about, assisting each other in filling their plates. Above the giggling chaos the phone rang. I navigated the crowd like a bumper car, with a half-eaten potato in hand, until I finally reached for the receiver.

It was Ray, Elishah’s father. Even though I didn’t know him well, I could immediately tell that his easygoing rancher’s style was somehow tightened. Our brief conversation revealed that he had injured his back and was in a great deal of pain. To make matters worse, he had been bailing hay at the time. “Can you please send Elishah home to help bring in the hay?” he said through lips that sounded drawn with pain.

“How much hay is down?” I asked while covering my ear to better hear him. “It’s a small field,” he said, and then I heard him tallying to himself. “Maybe two or three hundred bales.” I glanced at Elishah through the hungry, jostling group. Although she is known to us all as a five-foot-one-inch package of pure-bred, rocket-fueled try hard, the task was far greater than even she could manage.

My heart began to twist with conflict. I would love to help, but...I glanced around my home at kids and leaders just settling down with dinner plates full of supper balanced on their knees. The dinner had already started, and our time together would last until nearly dark.

My gaze lingered on the group. All these folks had come for fellowship, for ministry, for something that would fill their hearts. Then lightning flashed across my tired brain: True happiness is not found in gaining what we don’t have, but in giving what we do. The greatest joy, the greatest peace, the greatest fulfillment within this life is giving what we have, not seeking what we want. If this young group truly sought fulfillment, this might be their answer. Abruptly I told Ray that I would call him right back.

I called for everyone’s attention and shared Ray’s plight. Without hesitation the kids agreed wholeheartedly in my proposed solution. With deep gratitude, Elishah called her father back and simply said, “Don’t worry Dad; help is on the way.”

Dinner and plates were left on the kitchen counter as everyone began to ready themselves for the task at hand. My husband, Troy, led the charge as kids grabbed hats, gloves, long-sleeved shirts from the coat rack in the living room, while filing out the front door. Everyone piled into trucks as we made a hasty caravan over the handful of miles that separated Ray’s ranch from ours.

Upon arrival the kids pulled on their gloves and followed the sound of Ray’s baler chugging through the pasture. Like geese in flight the kids ran ahead of the hay truck as it bumped and jerked through the field. That team ferried the hay to the other team of kids on the flatbed, who neatly stacked the endless stream of bales that was being tossed at their feet. Through the eyes of any rancher it was poetry in motion.

I hefted bale after bale onto the groaning flatbed and I couldn’t help but think of my grandmother. The memory made me smile. I knew she would call this “a warm handshake.” This was her version of giving someone what they needed beyond what they could do for themselves.

The sun balanced on the horizon, suspended in radiant agreement with the day’s work. The field lay washed in soft shafts of orange and yellow light. The tumbling contentment of a nearby stream rose gently to join in the evening chorus of the gathering nighthawks. All life seemed to be celebrating the precious gift of one more day.

I watched the kids, running and laughing through this simple place, a rolling hay field. It seemed as if every step on the fresh cut pasture released a humid wave of grassy perfume, rich with the fragrance of summer. Yet when bathed in the molten colors of twilight, wafting with the warm fragrance of life, it could have been heaven itself.

After tucking the last load of hay into the barn, the young, benevolent group walked back up to the inviting red ranch house. To everyone’s surprise, Elishah’s mother had waiting a checker-clothed table laden with fresh-baked pies, ice cream, and glass pitchers brimming with sweet mint tea.

Damp from the efforts of the evening, the kids exchanged wet hugs among the group. With contented fatigue and a plate full of pie, they spread out beneath a sprawling tree whose branches were strung with soft yellow bulbs.

I leaned back on an old wooden bench with a tall glass of icy tea and watched those young ones with deep satisfaction. I thought to myself, This is fellowship. Ministry is not confined to a place or a thing—it is who we are. It is what we do with our heart and our hands. It is everything we choose to give.

Above the yellow glow of the lights beyond the dark branches of the trees, as if in agreement, a nighthawk’s song filled the twilight.

Taken from the book Hope Rising, by Kim Meeder.

Stories from the ranch of rescued dreams.