A Hard Row to Hoe

Farming is just plain hard work. As I had brothers, I didn’t have to help with most of the field work, but the one field task I couldn’t get out of was walking beans. Come July, day after day, Dad would hand out machetes or corn hooks (a small curved blade with a long handle) and gloves to Mom and the four kids and we would ride in the back of the pickup to the soybean fields. We had 60 acres of soybeans to weed by hand. Corn stalks -- random leftovers from last year’s crop -- could be cut. Others had to be pulled. Dad paid us five cents per row.

We were each responsible for four rows of beans, two on our left and two on our right. We lined up in phalanx formation and walked across the field, more or less together, weeding our own rows. It took only a few minutes for us to be covered with sweat and dirt. The plants made us itch, and corn leaves cut our skin.

My most memorable day of walking beans was perhaps the most miserable day of my childhood. We encountered a large patch of weeds, with lots of mustard and cockleburs, which had to be pulled by hand. Mustard came up easily, but cockleburs were extremely well-rooted. The thickest, longest part of the weed patch was centered in my own four rows. The whole family was slowed by the large patch, but, eventually, all the others finished their rows and moved on down the half-mile field. There were so many weeds in my rows, I just sat down, pulled as many as I could reach, then inched forward and pulled some more. The sun was relentless. There are no shade trees in a soybean field. Sweat traced wobbly paths through the dirt on my body. My muscles ached; I was exhausted. There was not a person in sight. The water cooler was in the truck at the end of the row. I was so miserable, I cried as I pulled weeds. The tears and runny nose only added to my misery. I didn’t stop weeding, and I didn’t stop crying. I felt so lonely and hopeless. Didn’t they miss me? Not on your life – they were busy tending to their own twenty cents. My rows were my problem.

Eventually they returned, sixteen rows farther across the field. Decades later, Mom recalled her dismay at seeing me sitting in the weed patch, sobbing as I worked. She helped me finish my rows. Her presence didn’t change the heat, the fatigue, the thirst. But it made all the difference in the world to have someone working alongside me.

Most of the people around us have, in some form or another, a hard row to hoe. God tells us in many ways to help others. He tells us to take our neighbor’s wandering ox back home, to share our food when others have unexpected guests, to weep with those who weep, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Sometimes we may not see their weed patch. We may be busy earning our own 20 cents. But He doesn’t let us off the hook for that. He tells us not to look the other way. Even if we can’t actually help, it makes a difference to have someone beside us who sees our struggles.

And He is the one Who is always with us. Jesus said it was good for us that He went away, so the Holy Spirit could come. He called His Holy Spirit a Comforter, the One Who comes alongside – exactly what we need.

--Lynda Shenefield