Rev. A.J. Ogden

My background is country living in the extreme. Living four miles out in the country from a small town of 1,500 in population, I plowed bare footed all my childhood. We raised a couple of pigs each year for meat and had a few yard hens to lay eggs, planted a field and garden for vegetables. I hunted squirrels, killed possums and sold their hides. Fishing helped support us a lot, and I set traps for mink whose hides sold for a lot in that day. With no school bus on our little road back then, I walked four miles each way, eight miles a day to attend school. But as hard as it was, I believe it was good training for me.

My dear old mule’s name was Bill. As we plowed along through the clods, stumps, and roots, I talked to Bill just as if he were a human being. Oh no, he didn’t understand all I was saying, or maybe sometimes he did. He seemed to know I loved him by the way he would bray at the feed trough, and I would rub his old head. Who knows? Anyway, we were very good friends. I’ve always wished there was a heaven for mules.

But Bill began to get old and weaker as we all do with time. I’d hook Bill up to the wagon or plow and tell him, “Look Bill, I know you are tired, weary and old, and I’m not going to work you as long as we used to. You just walk a little slower and I’ll let you stop and rest some all along the way.”

The day came I had to leave home for World War II and combat in Germany. The morning I had to leave for Camp Shelby I went by the field to tell Bill good-bye. He was frail and weak, and I almost knew I’d never see him again. I petted him, talked to him, and bid him farewell with tears in my eyes. I really cried like a baby.

After much water had run under the bridge, the war was over and I returned home, but Bill had been dead a long time. With tears again I looked upon his patch that we had plowed with tears of gratitude for Bill’s contribution. The field had grown up now in bushes, no longer in cultivation. Then at the end of the row stood our old rusty plow with the handles rotted away and Bill not around. Time changes things! Many tears are shed in this life, but remember this, if you are saved and it will cheer you up. Jesus said in John 14:1-3, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” The future is as bright as the promise of God.