I was watching Maria this morning bring water to Lori and Robin, checking on Issachar’s face cut, dumping ashes from the woodstove onto the hole in the driveway from the winter plowing, getting Fate to run around the sheep, greeting Minnie, scolding the chickens for not enjoying the sun.

And so excited about a new idea for her art.

This, I thought, is just where she belongs. She is safe here, happy, busy in the most meaningful way.

This is just where she should be, and we should be together. It is a joyous thing – and a rare one – to find people being just where they should be.

This morning, she said, she would sit out in the barn with Robin and sketch him and then make some Robin potholders today. How lucky I am, she said, for this to be my art and my life.

I went inside and dug out a reading I love and found some months ago: “Come to me, you who labor and are overburned, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.” – Matthew 11:28-30.

That is the voice of our farm, our place, the place we should be.

Can I trust that voice and believe it?

When I listen closely, I can hear that voice repeatedly, and I have come to recognize it as the voice speaking to the deepest places of my heart.

We are where we belong.