From God's Hands to your Land - Blessings
Fall 2012  God has blessed us in a way that we have never experienced before. In July of this year, we were in the middle of a drought on our land. It was at the point that if we did not receive rain soon, we would lose most of our crop. Our corn had already tasseled out and it is critical for the rains to come during that time to help pollinate the corn. Our soybeans were knee high and were blossoming and the blossoms were falling off and very few bean pods were developing.  I asked the Lord to show me what to do. As I prayed that day in mid July, he put it in my heart that we needed to bless our land. I had received a book from a friend of mine back in April called From God s Hands to Your Land by Jeanette Strauss. I found the book and sat down and read it through that afternoon. I then told my husband when he came home that the Lord had showed me that we needed to bless our land. I explained to him that there was a procedure that we needed to follow and that this book would take us step by step through it.  On July 17, 2012, we went through the ceremony of blessing our land and giving our land back to God. On the 19th of July the rains came. By the 27th of July we had 7 1/2 inches of rain on our land. New blossoms sprouted on our soybeans. My husband is 6 feet tall and in August when he would be out walking in the fields the beans were up to his chest. They grew abundantly. God has richly blessed us. In a drought year our land has produced a record crop of soybeans. Our land has on average produced 35-40 bushels of soybeans an acre. This year we have harvested 55-60 bushels to the acre.  Our corn fields typically produce 150 bushels to the acre. My husband was hoping for 100 bushels this year and would have been very satisfied with that due to the drought. . Our corn fields this year averaged 157 bushels to the acre.  The richest blessing has not come from what our fields have yielded this year but rather for what God has done in our hearts. He has showed us His faithfulness to His promises. Our faith has grown immeasurably. When we were obedient to what God showed us to do, we didn t know how things would turn out. From the moment that we stepped out in obedience, we had to walk by faith that God would take care of us. It was now His land and we were just the caretakers of it. We had to make sure that we spoke only positive things out of our mouth concerning the land. This summer we learned to walk by faith and not by sight and God has richly blessed us. Al & Betty Tanner Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. --Al & Betty Tanner - West Unity, OhioMy husband and I took the advice from this book and followed the steps of the Blessings ceremony on our fields of beans and corn. This year a drought came and we were losing everything. I went down to the fields and walked around reminding the Lord that these fields were His, and thanking him for preserving the crops even in the time of drought for His Glory. I am so happy to report that this field had a higher yield per acre then last year. A High Praise to God. He is so Good and Rick and I are so proud to be the caretakers of His land. --Rick and Mary