"Echoes of Eden" Dayle King Searle

An old Garth Brooks song contains the line, “some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.” This sentence has played over and over in my mind as I’ve thought about an experience my son Preston shared with us in our “home church” this past Sunday. Preston is a student at BYU-Idaho, where he is studying agricultural business. At 25, he is a little older than most college juniors. Right after high school he went through some bumps in his life, but for the past four years he has been working to get his life back on track—both temporally and spiritually. As part of Preston’s course of study, he is required to do an internship. About a year ago he mapped out his graduation plan. On it he scheduled his internship for the spring semester of this year, which started this week. Because his degree is an agricultural one, he wanted to intern with a large agricultural producer. His plan would allow him to do his internship from April to September, the main production season for Ag. A

                On my last birthday I turned old. I know this because of several things. First, a few weeks before my birthday I was helping my granddaughter Ellie practice for a spelling test. One of the words was “old.” I went down the list, pronouncing each word and using it in a silly sentence, then having Ellie spell it. When I came to “old,” before I could come up with a silly sentence, Ellie very matter-of-factly said, “Like you, grandma.”                 Ellie is in the first grade. She thinks anyone over the age of 15 is old, so her words alone didn’t clue me in that my looming birthday would brand me as old.