Chapter 1 — Roots in the Soil

Where faith first took root, and the groundwork for everything to come was laid.

I was raised where sunrise meant work and sunset meant gratitude. There wasn’t any smell of coffee drifting down the hall — Mom never liked the stuff — but there was always my older brother’s voice echoing through the dark: “Come on, Nathan! Let’s go — chores before breakfast!”

He’d yank the covers off, and half asleep I’d stumble into my boots. By the time the first rooster crowed, we were already knee-deep in feed buckets and hay bales. The rhythm of farm life was simple but steady — full of lessons, laughter, and the kind of work that teaches responsibility before most kids ever learn the word.

I liked most of it: milking goats, brushing horses, bottle-feeding calves. The rabbits were easy company, quiet and steady. But the chickens? We never saw eye to eye. They pecked my hands when I reached for the eggs, and I pecked right back — we’ve been debating ownership ever since.

Still, the farm was my playground, my classroom, and occasionally my battlefield.

The Kick That Knocked Sense into Me

One summer afternoon I decided to make friends with the new colt — a tall, proud filly still nursing from her mama. She looked gentle enough, and I figured she could use a good rub on that shiny coat. I walked up behind her, calm as could be, thinking I was doing something kind.

Bad idea.

Her back legs fired like a shotgun, catching me square in the stomach. The world turned sideways; I flew across the driveway, hit the fence, and saw stars dancing where daylight used to be. For a moment I was sure that was it — life over at age ten.

When I finally staggered up, bruised and humiliated, I promised God and anyone listening that I’d never sneak up on another horse again. It was my first real lesson in consequences — and grace.

The Bent Oak

Out front stood Dad’s pride and joy: a young oak tree he’d planted by hand. Every time I mowed the lawn, he’d flag it with bright tape so I wouldn’t hit it. Every time, somehow, I completely mowed it down.

And somehow, it always grew right back — tougher, thicker, a little crooked, but alive. Twenty-five years later that oak still stands, its trunk bent from all that early trauma — a permanent reminder that resilience is born out of impact.

“He shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season.” — Psalm 1:3

Building and Breaking (and Building Again)

I was a builder by nature — part inventor, part pyromaniac, depending on how close you stood to my welding torch. What I wanted most as a kid was a side-by-side — one of those off-road rigs every farm kid dreams about.

Dad didn’t buy one, but he handed me something better: the tools to make my own. With his cutting torch, grinder, and welder, I went to work in a cloud of sparks. Weeks later, through sweat, burns, and a few questionable design choices, my homemade side-by-side roared to life. It rattled like a can of bolts, but it ran. I still have it today — a monument to stubborn creativity.

Mom never scolded me for the mess. She loved my projects, even when I had too many going at once. “Nathan,” she’d say, smiling, “you’ll never finish everything you start.” Maybe not — but finishing wasn’t the point. Creating kept my heart steady and my mind from idling.

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.” — Luke 16:10

Learning Through Wrecks and Wrenches

Farm life came with plenty of “learning moments.” Like the day I dented the lawn tractor by introducing it to a tree, or when I confused the clutch for the brake and flattened a stop sign with the big tractor. Dad never yelled. He’d just fix it, maybe grin a little, and let the lesson speak for itself. That quiet grace taught me more about love than any lecture ever could.

Later, as part of homeschooling, I apprenticed in local shops. My favorite was the auto garage where I spent months restoring a 1979 Ford F-150 Highboy — a rusted, primer-gray relic missing half its parts. I rebuilt the engine, replaced bearings and seals, sanded, painted, and resurrected it into something beautiful. Every turn of the wrench felt like breathing life back into dead metal.

I also discovered a love for fine cabinetry — building benches and tables for Mom, toys and birdhouses for fun. Wood, steel, or soil — it didn’t matter. My hands just wanted to build.

Westward Bound

By the time I hit my twenties, the fences around our fields started feeling smaller. I loved the farm, but God was whispering “go.” So I went — west to the Great Northwest.

I joined my brother on the custom harvesting crew, baling and hauling hay across wide valleys, moving heavy equipment from farm to farm. Eventually I started my own landscaping company, Clean Cuts Inc., and for the first time I felt the satisfaction of steering my own plow, so to speak.

Selling that business was one of the hardest decisions I’d made, but obedience often looks like sacrifice. I followed a new opportunity in aviation and railroad vegetation control — work that, unbeknownst to me, would secure the insurance I’d need when an oak tree nearly ended my life years later. God was already ten steps ahead.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.” — Romans 8:28

Looking back now, every bruise, every dented tractor hood, every crooked tree and half-finished project was a rehearsal for faith. The soil of my childhood taught me that growth rarely comes easy — but it always comes. Those roots still hold me steady.