There once was a man who worked in the fields. He worked with farm machinery and had great knowledge of all things that grow. A tough man. Calloused hands. Sweaty brow. Soaked flannel shirts and long pants in spite of summer heat. He could accomplish more on a given day than ten other farmhands combined. He never guessed his own strength.

He was self-educated on all that he knew. He bled for every penny he had been given. He shaped and molded himself into a force of nature. He knew his strengths and ignored his weaknesses. Publicly humble. Secretly proud and self-assured. He knew he could do anything he desired.

As he was working in the fields, one late afternoon, his body gave out. He had nothing left. He lay in the dirt for an hour waiting for someone to notice his damaged self. Badly injured, unable to move, he was eventually rescued and taken to a hospital. There they told him that he needed a new heart.

Amazingly, there were many donors. There were many young people who had recently died in car accidents and other tragedies that wanted their bodies to be given so that others could live. The man couldn’t accept their gifts. He couldn’t fathom accepting a gift that was free. He couldn’t imagine accepting life without earning it. He couldn’t come to terms with the idea that he was unable to make his heart work any better on his own.

Over time, he withered away and eventually disappeared, because he wouldn’t accept a gift. This is the story of the self-made man who worked in the fields.

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