Half Full? Or Half Empty?

Is the glass half full or half empty? Is a rain good or bad?

Is everything black or white? Or are there some subtle shades of gray?

These are the things I ponder as I walk along our country roads. Nature provides lots of illustrations about life in general, if you just open your eyes and your heart.

As I walked yesterday morning at 7 AM, I was sure it was going to rain. It smelled like rain. The air was heavy with moisture. The blue skies overhead seemed swollen and pregnant with raindrops.

I have to admit: I was grumbling a little bit about the possibility that it might rain. Sure, it was making for pretty scenery while I walked. That blue sky against the golden wheat? It's the stuff of picture postcards from Kansas and June calendar pages.


But we aren't done with wheat harvest. I didn't particularly want an interruption that would stretch it out even further.

However, you must remember that I live with the eternal optimist. Even though he wasn't with me, I could hear him whispering in my ear: "A little rain would be good for the milo. Rain makes the pastures grow. Rain will help the alfalfa crop."

Winston Churchill once said: "Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference." I've seen that quote on more than one classroom wall.

It's probably with good reason.

When I shifted my perspective, my eyes were opened to other beauty.

Thanks to the rains which delayed harvest for nearly a week before we ever got started, the milo is starting to shoot up.

It's grown several inches since I took the photos of the first shoots just peeking through the ground.
Further along my way, I saw the neighbor's dryland corn. There's no irrigation system to make sure it gets enough moisture, so a rain would help his crop, too.


The alfalfa will be ready to swath again once we get wheat harvest out of the way. It, too, was nourished by the rains a week and a half ago.


By the time I walked home, the skies were clearing. I had been wasting time worrying about something that wasn't going to happen anyway. Chalk up another lesson from nature.

So, with my mind's soundtrack playing Three Dog Night's "Black and White" in the background, I again considered: Is the glass half full or half empty?

I think I'll side with my husband who always seems to find the glass full to overflowing.

And with Charles Swindoll:

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company ... a church ... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.”

Charles R. Swindoll

I pray you will find your glass full today - whether you are in the midst of harvest stress or just living life with all its peaks and valleys.