This picture is NOT our tractor.

I want to get that stated clearly first thing. It does belong to a neighbor of ours and the kids and I stopped and stared when we drove by it the other day.

But, ours came so close to this yesterday. That the tractor and baler didn’t go up in flames yesterday is totally and completely due to God’s hand in our lives.

I was driving home from dropping the kids off to spend some time with their grandparents. A long drive across a long and delightfully empty state. The phone rang. I answered happy to hear from my husband. Instead of the usual greeting he immediately wanted to know where I was and ordered me to stop where I was and wait.

A part had broken on the baler and the only one within a days drive was at a tractor dealer in a town just behind me. I was told to stay where I was and let them finish checking to make sure it was really there.

I waited while calls were made. The part was there. In the small town that I just happened to be next to. That was impressive enough alone. Instead of huge shipping bills and not getting the part for a couple of days, we squeezed in into the trunk and it was home that afternoon.

Once I got home and heard the whole story. It got even more amazing.

A belt had broke in the baler.

When they pulled into the yard to fix it, a roller was broken. The ends mushroomed, the roller itself was not quite red hot, but blue shiny and too hot to touch. They cleared everything way from it to allow it to cool without starting any fires and went to see if they could find missing parts in the last bale, to get them out and keep a bale from catching fire.

All hot metal parts were found. In the end nothing caught fire and the tractor and baler didn’t end up like this on of a neighbors of ours did last week.

Balers burn so easily. That ours not only didn’t, but that I just happened to be on the only town in the state with the needed part is purely and act of God.

God is good!