Dreams

After I've had some time to accumulate a few more posts on this blog, you'll likely begin to see a recurring theme. You will see ties to agriculture -- particularly cattle. For years I've made my living in various capacities associated with the livestock industry. It's probably because as a child, my dream was to grow up to be a cowboy. Isn't that surprising. I think most boys growing up in cattle country go through that phase at one time or another.

Although I grew up in town, I spent most weekends and summers on my granddad's farm or, as I got older, working for one of the farmers in the area. My love was always to be working with the cattle. I guess I was never a very good tractor driver. I had a strong tendency to drift off from the monotony and plow up a little cotton or corn here and there. Maybe that's why I usually got sent to the layout ground with a tandem disk!

When I headed to college, it was with the idea of becoming an engineer. It took me about two weeks to decide that was the wrong place for me. I switched to agricultural economics my second semester and found something that I could enjoy. In everything that I've worked at for the last ?? years, I've been at least somewhat connected to agriculture. Since the early 90's, I've been in businesses that served the livestock industry.

Some lucky people get to live out their dreams. For others, dreams evolve through the years into something different. I think God plants dreams in our hearts for a purpose. He wants us to wake up in the morning with something that pulls us forward to face the challenges. He plants new things and new people in our lives at just the time we need them. Sometimes it takes those new people and things to revive our dreams -- to remind us that we should keep pushing forward toward what He has planted in us. That doesn't mean we'll become the next "Nashville Star", but it might mean that we can use those talents and abilities in ways and places that we never even knew existed when those dreams were planted. It's likely they'll be even better than what we envisioned.