It started like any other morning.
Coffee in hand, kids still asleep, a quiet moment between husband and wife before the sun ushered in the rhythm of farm life. John and I reviewed the cut sheet for a steer heading to processing, I preheated the ovens for a day of baking, and soon the kids began to stir. Mark arrived to help haul the steer, and John set off to build a new fence line on our summer pasture.
Nothing felt out of place.
Nothing warned me that within the hour, I’d be sprinting through chest-high grass, pouring rain soaking my clothes, screaming my husband’s name into silence.
Ring…Ring…Ring…
The familiar ringtone lit up my phone. I answered casually.
“Hello.”
Yelling into the phone, John’s voice cracked through the speaker:
“I’m… out! I… died!”
My chest tightened.
“What?! Are you OK?”
He shouted, frantic:
“…the post-pounder flipped…”
I didn’t need more.
“I’m on my way.”
John had been working about a mile from our house—as a crow flies, that is. But I’m not a crow. I gripped the steering wheel tight, flying down the road and begging God aloud: Please let him be okay. Please let him be okay.
A familiar vehicle appeared in front of me. It was the owner of the leased land John was fencing—our dear friend and a fellow church member. I laid on the horn, and he pulled over. I jumped out, barely able to speak through the fear shaking my voice.
“John was working along the McQue line. The post-pounder flipped. I think he might be hurt. Can you help me?”
Without hesitation: “Of course.”
He turned around and led the way.
He parked at the entrance of the field, and I drove ahead a bit before jumping out. I scanned the fence line. No tractor.
“Where is he?!” Howard yelled.
“I don’t know,” I called back. “He was supposed to be right here.”
I tried his phone. No answer.
I screamed his name. Nothing.
Again. Silence.
Again. Still nothing.
Panic gripped me.
And then—I heard it. A banging. Faint but unmistakable. Like a rock against metal.
Howard heard it too. We ran.
The rain fell hard. The field swallowed me in tall grass. I sprinted, lungs burning, praying against the possibilities that raced through my mind. A crushed limb. A pierced lung. Blood. Brain injury. Worse.
And while my legs moved forward, my heart replayed our life in reverse:
Our first meeting at the county fair…
The day he asked me to marry him…
The joy of our wedding…
The birth of our sons…
Our morning coffee that very day…
The dreams we have for the future—was this where they ended?
Finally, I reached the edge of the woods and saw it: the tractor, backed into the trees. Fence posts were scattered across the ground. The post-pounder was overturned on a stone wall.
I scanned the area—no John.
Then I turned…
And there he was.
Standing. Alive.
Banging on a twisted hitch pin, trying to disconnect the wrecked post-pounder from the tractor.
I ran to him. Hugged him. A tear ran down my face in relief.
Howard was still making his way toward us, and I called out:
“He’s OK!”
“What happened?” I asked.
John recounted it—how he backed into an uneven corner, trying to get one more post in. How the boom rose and shifted the weight.
How it came flying at his head.
How he tripped and fell.
How, by inches, the machine missed him.
“I thought it was the end,” he said.
I looked at the scene—where he lay, where the post-pounder landed.
A heap of more than three thousand pounds of metal, less than four inches from where John fell.That’s all.
It should’ve crushed him.
But it didn’t.
Jake, Howard’s son, brought a tractor to help lift the machine upright. As I walked back out of the field, I was met by Jake’s wife and a car full of kids.
I tried to explain what happened, my voice still shaking.
She pulled me into a hug and said words only a fellow farm wife could speak with truth:
“I’m a farm wife. I get it.”
Because we do.
We know what it means to do life together. To be not just spouses, but teammates in the work of the land and legacy. Without your husband, the whole operation falters. In the blink of an eye, it all can change.
That day, the field was soaked with rain—but not with blood. That day, we walked away with a story instead of a tragedy. That day, I witnessed a miracle.
And I am unspeakably grateful for God’s protection over my husband, the help from our neighbors who didn’t hesitate to lend a hand, and the kind words and embrace of an understanding friend.
Farming is risky business.
But community, faith, and providence make even the darkest moments light again.
And this ordinary Thursday?
We’ll never forget it.