Well, it wasn’t actually a brown field. It looked like one when I looked outside and saw the brown rows of cotton once harvested, not yet planted again. It sounded like one when I stood to close to the window and heard the dirt whistle past in the wind. It smelled like one when the wind blew from the east and the cattle yards would fragrance the air. It felt like one when my parched skin whined for more lotion. It felt like one when my young heart was scared and lonely and missing my family being whole. 

And it tasted like one. I could taste it in the glass of water I drank when I got myself a glass before bed on that first night when we moved in to Granny's house. The kitchen was dark with the over-the-sink light and the refrigerator light both glowing.  I had had the water in Brownfield before. But this was the first night it was the water where I now lived. It was the water in the brown field and it tasted like it. 

I could taste it in the biscuits at dinner the next night. I already knew I would when I watched Granny pull them out of the oven, after forgetting to set the timer. They were black on the bottom and brown on the top. I don’t remember what we had with the biscuits that night, though I’m sure it tasted amazing – my Granny really could cook almost anything other than biscuits- but I remember my Grandaddy walking by and plucking a biscuit off the hot pan and saying “the burned biscuits taste better.” I remember watching him eat another at the dinner table and thinking “how can he even choke that down?”. I would hear him repeat this same thing multiple times when living there. To this day, I don’t actually know if he liked the biscuits better burned or not. But that doesn’t really matter. It was one way he told my Granny he loved her, even if the fields were brown. Even if things were hard. 

I remember laying in my bed at Granny’s house that night in the brown field. I couldn’t sleep and it was late. I walked into the kitchen to get another taste of water and Grandaddy was there. We took our water glasses to the little couch on the other side of the living room, near the door to my room. He told me when he couldn’t sleep, he counted sheep, but not like imagining them jumping over a fence or something. He recited the twenty-third Psalm over and over until he fell asleep. He remembered the Good Shepherd. I went back to bed and pulled out my Bible and that night I memorized Psalm 23. 

The dark valley sounded like a brown field. But the green pastures, the still water, the overflowing cup and banquet table? That didn’t sound like a brown field. That sounded like something good. My Grandaddy gave me many gifts in his life (most of them Granny actually bought and added his name to the tag), but this is my favorite of all. He gave me the gift of the Good Shepherd in the brown field. 

Looking back, that season in the brown field wasn’t all that long in the grand scheme of things. It felt long. It was lonely. It was hard. It was a brown field. But when I look back now, I remember the Good Shepherd. He was good to provide for my family in the dark valley. He was good to make my family whole again. Even now, when I find myself in a dark valley, no matter how dark, no matter how long or even short, I remember to start counting sheep. 

There have been several brown field seasons in 30 years since then. They looked like a brown field. They sounded like one. Felt like one. But never again has a season tasted like a brown field. No, every time I taste a brown field now, it tastes like love. It tastes like my Granny’s kitchen and my Grandaddy’s wisdom. It tastes like the Good Shepherd. 

The burned biscuits taste better. At least, that’s what my Grandaddy always said.