A Statement of Meaning

I just started this blog to chronicle my journey toward obedience to God in his call for me to live a separate agrarian lifestyle. I thought I'd take the opportunity of this first post to give meaning to the title I chose for the blog in light of what it means to me.

The first word, reformed, is a reference to the theological foundation which orders my worldview according to the work of the Holy Spirit. I say by the Holy Spirit, because if you had known me only a short time ago you would never have imagined that I would come to embrace the doctrines of grace. I could hardly imagine myself a Christian and admittedly I resisted Christ a great deal within myself, for which today I humbly repent. Seeing now the transformation which Jesus Christ wrought in me, I can only pray that His will be done and not my own. Thus any exposition of my own life begins with a nod to the One who ordered it all from the foundation of the world.

The second word, yeoman, is a reference both to my past and future. In studying my own ancestry, I am continually amazed by the Scotch-Irish people who settled the Southern half of this country. Persecuted by both Papists and Anglicans in Northern Ireland, Scotch-Irish Protestants migrated to this country where they developed self-sufficient agrarian communities based on sound, Calvinist doctrine. They were for the most part smallholding yeoman farmers who provided for the needs of their families with their hands in the soil. God's perfect order was evident in their lives. Across many generations, creeping worldliness began to take its toll. Overdependence on the cotton economy resulted in declining self-sufficiency and it was only a matter of time before my family would become separated from the land and from God. It is this recognition and the instruction of the Holy Scriptures that has caused me to seek the old paths. My prayer is that God's perfect order might be evident in my own life as it was in those who came before me.

Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where [is] the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.

Jeremiah 6:16