RAINBOW REFLECTOR - The Newsletter for Rainbow Bible Ranch
Rainbow Reflector
Holiday 2001Homestead Happenings By Larry Reinhold
The sun was so low now that each prairie swell began to have its shadow lying eastward, and out of the large, pale sky the flocks of ducks and the long wedges of geese were sliding down to Silver Lake to rest for the night. The clean wind was blowing now with no dust in it, and Laura let her sunbonnet slip down her back so that she could feel the wind on her face and see the whole great prairie.
There was no railroad there now, but someday the long steel tracks would lie level on the fills and through the cuts, and trains would come roaring, steaming and smoking with speed. The tracks and the trains were not there now, but Laura could see them almost as if they were there.
Suddenly she asked, “Pa, was that what made the very first railroad?”
“What are you talking about?” Pa asked.
“Are there railroads because people think of them first when they aren’t there?”
Pa thought for a minute. “That’s right,” he said. “Yes that’s what makes things happen……….”
I read this account in my big chair in the living room to our girls before bedtime the other night from By the Shores of Silver Lake by the great children's author, Laura Ingalls Wilder. They are fascinated by trains. That due in part to the many stories that Grandma Reinhold tells about her life as a child near the tracks in Avon, South Dakota. The girls’ interest grew as I pulled out the South Dakota atlas and showed where Laura was living over 100 years ago when that railroad was being built. I told them that Miss Darcie (their Sunday School teacher) grew up near Silver Lake. And then I pointed out that the same railroad that we cross on the way to church is connected all the way across the state. I showed them on the map where it comes across the fertile farms of eastern Dakota and crosses the Missouri River at Ft. Pierre and then follows the Bad River. I showed them where it goes over the Cheyenne River and begins its steady climb into the Black Hills towns.
We finished off our little lesson in wonderment with Laura of so long ago as we thought about the many things that can happen when people think about the seemingly impossible and then proceed to do something about it.
As I watched the those sweet little blondies head up the creaking old oak staircase, I was counting my blessings. And then as usual at this time of night when my mind begins to swirl with activities and questions and answers and prayer and ponderings, I came back to Laura’s question; “Are there railroads because people think of them first when they aren’t there?”
Years ago, I was challenged by an elderly person when told of a tree planting project that we as a family were doing. She responded, “Why are you doing that? You will never see them get big.” My response was simple. “ Boy am I glad my Grandparents planted trees and my parents continued on the tradition.”
Yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never arrive. All we have is the ever-present now. And there is no better time to allow God to lead our thinking as we build towards new horizons. Let us pray and then put our hearts on the line. Allow God to take our minds to the grind stone and hone our thinking to be sharp and on the edge of marvelous events that will lead to events of eternal magnitude.
I am convinced that one of the best ways to do that is to invest our lives into the spiritual development of people, especially youth. Young people are so similar to the prairie in that their being is so open and vast and therein lies the potential.
Please pray and support the ministry of Rainbow Bible Ranch. Along with so many of you we are thinking and praying of things to come. But we don’t want this to be an unfinished railroad that leads to nowhere. As the railroad of Laura’s day continued on and is useful even until the present in our community, may we establish such a record to the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.