A Small Remembered Story

Over the years I’ve prepared many lessons for church classes. 
As most members do, we amateurs jump right in there, teaching preschoolers to eighty year olds, praying mightily all the while, convinced that everyone in the class knows more than the teacher, even the preschoolers. 
We do this because we believe that the Lord had a hand in our being asked to teach at this time and place. Then too, it always turns out that we learn a great deal more than anybody else from the experience.

At times, I’ve also been kindly asked to speak to various groups. Mostly firesides and the like, which is a little different, because there’s not a lesson manual prepared for the teacher to follow. 
In that case the praying gets even more desperately intense and this particular speaker looks frantically around for anything pertinent which may help and fit the topic at hand. A lot of my own writings came about in just these situations. 
In addition to my own thoughts, somewhere during the desperation I found several small helpful stories. I can’t recall whether I heard or read them somewhere, but over the years I’ve told them many times. I have no idea who the original authors were but I’m grateful for their thoughts. They helped me more than I can say, their little “moral of the story” sometimes coming to mind just when I needed it most. 
May Heavenly Father send blessings to fall gently on those who first wrote these small remembered stories. I include one of them here.

I CAN SLEEP WHEN THE WIND BLOWS

There once was a farmer who lived in an area where the family farm was disappearing. Huge corporations were taking over and a way of life was ending forever. This good man's own children had left to find work in the cities. He and his wife had survived many battles against drought, insects, flood, and a hundred other calamities but this seemed to be the hardest struggle of all.

Summer came. Crops must be planted and harvested and livestock must be cared for even with the children grown and gone. The man needed help but farmhands were nowhere to be found. He tried all the usual ways to hire someone with no luck. Finally a notice he’d put up in the local feed store brought a response.

Early one morning a knock came at the kitchen door. He opened it to find a skinny kid about 15 standing there. The farmer asked him in and they began to talk about the job and its requirements. The man thought dejectedly that this scruffy boy was going to be little help at all. Finally he asked him what his qualifications were. The boy answered “I can sleep when the wind blows.” The farmer asked for an explanation but the boy only repeated, “I can sleep when the wind blows.” 
The farmer quickly replied in an irritated tone, “There’s no time for joking around…..you’re hired. I’ll show you the bunkhouse and then let’s get to work.” He thought to himself….I have no choice.

Well, it turned out that this skinny kid was the hardest worker the farmer had seen in a long while. He was willing, stronger than he looked, and knew more about farming than most grown hands.

It was a long, hard summer but things were holding together. Then one hot night in August, long after everyone was asleep, a terrific storm began to blow up unexpectedly. Violent winds promised a coming deluge and the farmer jumped out of bed, threw on his clothes and ran to the bunkhouse to get the boy so they could get to work securing the place before the storm hit full force. He threw the door to the bunkhouse open and yelled, “Storm’s comin!! Let’s go! The kid rolled over in his bunk and said sleepily, “I can sleep when the wind blows.”

“What? Get up or you’re fired!” bellowed the farmer as he ran to the barn. He could hear a groggy, sleepy voice coming from the bunk….“I can sleep when the wind blows.” The farmer cursed as he opened the gate.

As he passed the wagon yard he noticed that all the tools had been put away. The haystack was covered with a tarp and tied down tight. Boxes with tack were shut and padlocked. He opened the barn door and ran to the stock. All were secured in their stalls…food and water close at hand. Loose items were tied or nailed tightly to the walls of the barn. He walked slowly from place to place in amazement…..everything had been made ready for a storm. Nothing was forgotten. He sat down on a bale of hay. “So the kid can sleep when the wind blows. I’ll be.”

The moral of this small story is that a storm is ALWAYS coming. 
No matter how bright the sun shines for you right now you can count on that. 
We’ve been told that “If ye are prepared ye shall not fear.” Whether it’s education, work, raising a family….. or spiritual, temporal, emotional, or physical needs……get ready for the wind. 
 Do something to get ready today. Then you can rest easy when the clouds roll in.