"Dear Lord, thank you
for this day of fellowship. Thank you for providing safety to all of us. Bless
this food to the nourishment of our bodies. Bless the hands that prepared it,
as well as the hands that produced it.
In Your name I pray, Amen.”
In my FFA chapter, prayer was a common occurrence. We prayed
before every trip in the ag-truck. We prayed before every meeting and meal. We
prayed before every competition and livestock show.
My senior year of high school, I was on a retreat with my
fellow chapter officers and ag-ed teacher. The topic of how we pray came into
conversation. A few of the officers had recently spent time with another FFA
member from a different chapter. Apparently, this chapter always ended their
prayer with: “…bless the hands that prepared it, as well as produced it.” It
was then challenged that our chapter should begin doing this.
It eventually became such a deal that in every situation,
even outside of FFA, people waited for the prayer to end with “as well as
produced it”. If someone did not say this, people would make sure that person
knew he or she didn’t say it.
Now, two years later, I find myself praying before meals and
ending the prayer asking for blessing to the hands that produced to food. No
one has ever really questioned it, until one day a family member noticed. She
immediately said, “It must’ve been an FFA thing”.
While yes, I did develop this habit through FFA, I was
offended that she implied that it was just an FFA thing. I tried explaining
that producers are just as important as the chefs, and they, too, need to be
prayed for. My family member just sort of laughed it off.
Many people are involved in the process of making meals.
Farmers grew and took care of the vegetable, fruit, grain, and meat. There were
hands who put their love into preparing the meals for everyone to eat.
Since being at college, I have noticed the lack of knowledge
of the agriculture industry people have. The people I know that are farmers and
ranchers work significantly hard in making sure their product is taken care of
well. They work long hours in tractors or feed trucks. Most of these people
also hold other jobs besides farming and ranching.
It is the least anyone can do to ask for blessing to these
people who have produced our food.
