Grandpa Olbrich is cheering us on

God makes good come out of bad things. Do you believe those who have gone before can influence events? I kind of think they do, not as ghosts, but more like saints. “A Great Cloud of Witnesses”. I’m not sure what that means, but it comes out of Hebrews 12:1, and seems to refer to those who have gone before us, cheering us on like fans at a sporting event. At least that’s how I see it.

In 1991 my brother had the best looking corn in our Illinois County, it stretched for more than a mile along the county blacktop. It was so good it was considered “Top Shelf” by all the corn borers (crop killing insects) in the region. My 81 year old father decided to intervene;  on June 8, 1991 he decided to spray insecticide. Now, there were two products, one was “Princep”, an insecticide, and the other, “Paraquat”, a general defoliant (it kills everything that grows). Dad got mixed up and purchased the wrong chemical. Right in front of God and all the neighbors he killed the best corn in the county. It was a slow death, and by the time we figured it out it was too late to do anything to save the crop, it was June 20th. Nothing could be planted on that treated area. Fortunately, my brother had set aside the same amount of land for a government program. He switched the land, and on some of the worst ground he had, we planted soybeans. It was late in the season to plant, and the prospects were not good.

I remember doing the planting as my brother worked the land. The planter broke, but I kept going not being able to shut the seed flow off at the end of the field. I just made a loop and kept going. My Dad’s German pride was in ruins, and three weeks later, after prostrate surgery, he sat down in his easy chair and died. He knew the Lord and had his Bible by his side when he just went to sleep and did not wake up. Here is my point: The soybean price was high that year and those soybeans were the best that farm had ever raised or would raise for at least another 20 years. He did not live to see it on this earth, but somehow I believe he was cheerleading from the bleachers in heaven.