Cotton Story.

Do y'all remember me posting on social media a few weeks ago about our cotton?How I said but God? I gave y'all the brief story on social media but I wanted to give you the full story behind it.

Every year usually starting in november/december I start praying about what to planT. Might be a little different than everyone else, but I know that this land,and these animals are not ours. We are just stewards. So I always want God's perspective on what he wants us to do. Plus this is his business anyways. Trust me we should have been bankrupt along Tim ago but God has sustained us and kept us in business..

Anyways back to the cotton story…..

In February I was having a lunch date with one of me dear friends. We had gotten dinner in town and then went back out to the grain bin and just sat and chatted about all the things. Family, life updates, God, kids, marriage, ennegram, really all the things. I started chatting with her about how I was stressed out about what to plant. Corn didn’t look good because of the super high inputs it is then fertilizer prices rising so much plus the unknowns with natural gas for irrigation. Then you throw on the record drought we are in. Plus I am really irritated with corn, it takes so much water and we are trying to be better stewards of our water!

Thats when she said that I should look into cotton. And honestly, that was so far off my radar. Externally I was like ohh yeah! I will look at it, but internally the thoughts running through my brain were that will never work! I can’t grow cotton, We are not cotton farmers. Dad will literally KILL me.

BUT then… That still small voice came in like a day later. “ Plant Cotton” But really God? Are you sure? Sooo I got busy and ran my budgets, made some phone calls, talked to dad, talked to mom, talked to the banker, talked to the seed rep, We went and visited the gin. And sure enough we are going to do this thing.

Then May came, and if yall remember we had record breaking winds. IT WAS SO WINDY. And cotton is a delicate plant. Then the corn market went sky high, and I doubted what the Lord told me. I was like are you sure God? I mean corn is what we know! It’s easy. I won’t have to find a new agronomist. I know I can make it sort of work with corn. Are you sure I heard you right?

Its funny how after you hear the Lord, the enemy comes in and tried to get you to doubt and question what He said. Man He has done that to me so many times! I am getting better at capturing my thoughts and reminding myself what the Lord said regardless of what my circumstances look like.

I was doubting what the Lord told me so much I literally had to just plant the cotton seeds in the ground and walk away! It was giving me so much anxiety. Then the winds came and tried to destroy it in May. Then in the middle of June it was finally starting to grow and look decent!

THEN the spray company came and didn’t clean out a hose before they came to us and tried to kill one half of it. Then the very next week, they did the same things to the other half! What in the world! God I heard you.. I thought this was supposed to be easy? Yeahhhhhhh that is not always the case when we follow the Lord’s plans for our life. Often times, He is so much more concerned about our heart than He is the outcome.

So about in July all the specialists came out, agronomists, plant specialists, etc came to our cotton field science experiment. They basically told us it was so damaged on the growing nodes that it would never come out of it, and if it did come out of it the flowers would probably just fall off. The flowers are what produce cotton. Well that sucks… so we shut down. We completely basically abandoned the crop. Oh and through this all I had to give the news to my banker, and I wasn’t sure how everything was going to shake out. If we were going to have to get a lawyer, or take it to court, or if we would be able to come to a resolution.

Because this is the first cotton grown in Stanton County and our APH sucks. The APH would not even cover our expenses if we went with what they wanted! Everyone told us we couldn’t hit our target yield of 2-3 bales per acre because of our elevation. Trust me it was alot of stress this summer, phone calls back and forth. I am grateful for the people who we worked with and all of their guidance.

Have you ever tried to fight for something you honestly have no idea about but you know its possible? Yeah that was me all summer.

So anyways back to abandoning the crop. In August we ended up starting the motors back up and the sprinkler back up, but only to start pre watering for our fall crops and to get some sub soil moisture going. And low and behold the cotton crop started flowering. And not only did it start flowering, they didn’t fall of. And they even started producing cotton. It was well after the August 15th date though, which everyone told us for our area, if it doesn’t have flowers on it by then it probably isn’t going to make cotton.

BUT GOD. Made record breaking heat records. Which is what cotton needs to thrive is heat! And good thing we were in the fiery furnace all summer and all fall basically. And heck even now its HOT for November.

And the cotton made cotton. I don’t know how much yet. The strippers will be here this week and then it still has to get ginned. Not all of the acres are harvestable. There are several acres we won’t run a stripper though. BUT God, He has taught me so much through this crop. Here are some lessons I have learned through this whole experience.

• Obedience- It might not make any sense at all, but do it anyways. What if I didn’t plant the cotton because I was too chicken of the outcome? I would have missed the blessings of walking through this crop and this experience with Him.

• REST- this one is huge. Like I said we shut off and really didn’t have to do anything this summer. But God took care of it somehow. We rested, and somehow are still going to get an income? That weird to me, but the Lord has been showing me to surrender and rest to Him and HE will provide when there seems no way.

• Dead things come alive- God has shown me this in so many different areas of my life. But sometimes things actually have to die to come back to life and be better than you ever thought possible.

• BUT GOD- nothing is done until God says it is done.

You wanna know the coolest thing of this whole crop? It has been watching my dad see what the Lord will do when we partner with Him. My dad believes in God but the relationship piece isn’t always there. My dad has came back alive with this crop, and for me that triumphs any other blessing that will come out of this crop. He has started to dream again. He has had a super hard life, losing kids, losing a brother, wrecks, bankruptcy, brain tumors, cancer, and so much more. But watching Him have HOPE again and to dream again has been the best blessing I could have ever received from being obedient to the Lord.

Did the cotton work the way I thought it would? Absolutely not! I didn’t think we would have to walk through all this we had to walk through, but it has been better than I could have imagined, and I am amazed at God’s character and how good He is and how merciful He is to those that love Him.

If you get anything from this post, is that I hope and pray you choose to be obedient to the Lord and what He is asking you to do. Obedience is hard, especially since we live in such an instant gratification world and want to do what we want to do when we want to do it. But walking in Obedience to the Lord is far better and far greater than anything this world could ever offer. And I pray this story encourages you and infuses hope into your soul and gives you courage to do what God is asking you to do to today.

I know regardless of how things work out, that God has us covered and that He will create good out of the traisl and struggles cause that is who He is! Romans 8:28. And I know that He will make a way when there seems to be no way. Trust me over the last 4 months there has been so many trials and tribulations. In October I went through some personal things that were so hard. BUT through those, God has renewed my Hope and also clarified some things for me on where to Go. He always has a purpose for the pain and He is writing a beautiful story just for you.

Will we plant cotton again? Yes absolutely, I think it’s a great crop for our area. Drought tolerant, like milo and wheat, you can clean up your fields with different herbicides that you can’t with other crops. I think it is a crop many are going to have to explore especially with the receding water table.

I hope yall have a super blessed Sunday. Not I better go start feeding and hauling water, and all the things for the calves and the cows!