Grind Your Axe in the Morning...A Snowy Sunday Reflection by: John Ritz Miller

A Snowy Sunday Reflection... My Grandfather was the eldest of many children raised on a Pennsylvania farm. His father, a coal miner, was killed in a mining accident when my Grandfather was still a young boy. In order to help support the family, he had no choice but to go to work carrying water to the miners in the very same coal mine his father had died in. Clearly no stranger to hardship and extremely hard work, he eventually started a family and raised my Mom and her sisters on a farm where nothing was bought that didn't absolutely need to be, and back breaking effort filled very long days.

When I was a youngster, my Grandfather who we called Grampap, came to visit often, and brought with him that same grinding work ethic that he passed on to us. He would be up in the morning hours before anyone else preparing and sharpening the tools for the day. Some of the best hours ever spent were those enjoyed when I got up early enough to join him. I have his old hunting knife (passed to me from my Aunt Albina), and some other tools that are ground down to almost nothing, but still remain as a testimony to how he extracted every ounce of use from everything, without ever wasting anything.

One long hot summer we set out to fence large areas of pasture for cattle we wanted to raise. There would be no buying fence posts for any such project when Grampap was involved. Instead, we used two man handsaws to cut down locust trees in the woods, then used a hand tool called an adze to strip the bark off, and finally, massive metal wedges and mauls to split the logs to create multiple fence posts out of each. It was a hot, sweaty and laborious effort that I loved almost as much as I loved my Grampap.

I did my best to pass that same work ethic on to my kids, and we enjoy many of the activities together that I did as a child with Grampap. Chopping and splitting wood, working on the sawmill and handcrafting things rather than buying them still creates special experiences and lifelong memories. Above is a photo I took this morning of some of our axes we still use today.

At the beginning of January, many of you saw that I posted the idea to read one of the 31 chapters of the book of Proverbs each morning. This month, I decided to read mine from a 106 year old book in my collection called New Minted Gold (photo of the cover below). It has the Proverbs written out, but intersperses with each chapter, additional words of wisdom or poems that help supplement the text.

Hopefully at least a few of you are joining me in reading the Proverbs this month. If so, together we read chapter 8:17 a few days ago that says "I love them that love me: and those that seek me early shall find me". On the page across from that verse is a great little poem pictured below, and titled "Grind Your Axe In The Morning" by George Lansing Taylor. The poem struck a special chord, bringing back priceless memories of Grampap while resonating his example of early preparation.

I believe this message extends to all areas of life. From the admonitions in the Bible to "train up our children in the way they should go", to the verse above to "seek me early" (applying to both early in life and early every morning). I think it also applies to our work lives, guiding us to both arise early and arise prepared, thereby positioning us to maximize on the day.

Let's commit to rising early every morning and seeking Him, and also to arising prepared for a productive day that will Glorify Him! I know that for the next few days at least, I will wake with warm memories of being with Grampap in the workshop, grinding the axe in the morning... Have a Blessed Sunday Friends!