As a young girl, I saw commitment in my grandmother, who helped Grandpa homestead our farm on the Kansas prairie. Somehow they outlasted the Dust Bowl, the Depression, and the tornadoes that terrorize the Great Plains.

As a young girl, I plowed the fields of our family farm. I worked construction with my dad. To save for college, I worked the morning biscuit line at Hardees.

I know how to set an irrigation tube, and I helped with the harvest. I learned the law of the harvest without even knowing I was learning it. On the farm, you learn early that you reap what you sow.

Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?

I was raised on a farm in Kansas where we lived next door to my Grandma Dew, and I was her shadow. We went everywhere together - to the bank, the doctor, the Early Bird Garden Club, and to an endless procession of Church meetings.

We're into Nicole Kidmans, rather than the young girl who just got married in a tracksuit.