TODAY THE WORD is HAYRIDE. Maybe it is my hay fever taking me back to my experience of hayrides. I am not sure if they even have hayrides anymore, but in my childhood, I was privy to several; I think every child needs to experience at least one hayride. Usually the hayride coincided with Halloween or fall festivals and were mostly sponsored by local churches. The farmers helped by furnishing the trailer complete with bales of hay, sometimes loose hay for all of us to sit on or fall in which happened quite frequently. The time was set normally to start this ride through the country side at dusk. The objective was to get all of us children excited with a little fear thrown in for good measure. The slow ride accompanied by the sound of the tractor was supplemented by a lot of yelling, a few screams, and the attempted campsite song of broken choruses when the trailer would hit a hole or bump in the road. Oh, it was funny and scary at the same time. Once in a while, someone would fall in the hay, not serious enough to injure, but silly enough to cause laughter and giggling. The trail would sometimes stop at a cemetery, where church members (adults who were the biggest kids in the world) were hiding behind tall tombstones to scare the daylights out of us. The running started then with the “big kids” laughing their heads off. Everybody was loaded again, and off we would go, laughing and some girls crying since they didn’t see the humor in the scary events in the graveyard. 
A good many of us can recall the hayrides of their youth and usually it is with a laugh or smile attached to those times. We can remember the scary parts of the hayride and we also can recall other times in our lives we have been scared by other means. The good part is we lived through those times and have entertaining stories to tell.
Now for the deeper thought…..I feel some indoctrination into the “scary” parts of life are healthy for children. Parents teach children to trust in them by being there for the support and for the safety from the “boogie man”. God is our Father and we are exposed to some scary times in our lives and we need to remember the lesson of the hay ride. We are going to be scared in life; we have to trust in God to make it all go away and allow us to load back on the life trailer and keep riding. Life can be fun and at the same time a little frightening so if we make sure God is on every hay ride; we are going to have a good time and make it over the holes and the bumps in the road.
DAILY FEATURED BIBLE VERSE:
1 Corinthians 3:12, 13
Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work.
(c) copyright 2012 Arline Lott Miller. The material here copyrighted, use only by permission.
