One day before the official end of the Days of Prayer for Rain, Blount County cattle farmer Denny Armstrong was counting cattle, raindrops and blessings.”We didn’t grow any produce this year, and I guess it’s good that we didn’t. (But) if it doesn’t rain next week, then we’ll sell all of our cows,” said Armstrong, who had already reduced his operation to 48 head due to barren pastures. “If that happens, it doesn’t mean that I’m no longer farming. It just means that I will pray about it and see what direction I need to go.”Prayer is exactly what Alabama Farmers Federation President Jerry A. Newby had in mind June 28 when he joined Gov. Bob Riley and Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks in a proclamation calling for a week of concentrated prayer for rain in the midst of a 50-year drought that could put scores of farmers out of business.”In the long term, we are moving toward improving our state’s irrigation capabilities, but that will take years to accomplish,” said Newby. “I ask every Alabamian to spend quality time in prayer this week asking that it be God’s will to bless Alabama with rain. The farmers have been praying for rain for weeks and covet the prayers of their fellow Alabamians.”Riley’s proclamation, designating June 30-July 7 as Days of Prayer for Rain, likewise urged “all Alabamians to pray individually and within their houses of worship for sufficient rain.”Did it work? It depends on where you live, but Dr. John Christy, the state climatologist, says something definitely happened during those Days of Prayer for Rain.Christy noted that the U.S. Drought Monitor, which at one time showed almost half (43.7 percent) of the state categorized as D4 or “exceptional drought,” now shows only 41.9 percent in D4. Furthermore, he expects it to drop even further as a result of the rain received during the prayer week.”The bottom line is there was improvement during that week,” Christy said from his Huntsville office on July 9. “As scientists, we’re not going to be able to determine how much the Almighty had a hand in that, but we’re certainly grateful. I know we prayed in our church.”At 55, Armstrong says he’s never seen a year as dry as 2007, but he credits a drought in 1980 for teaching him some profound spiritual truths he’s never forgotten.”Nineteen-eighty is a year that I always look back on as making a great leap in faith,” said Armstrong, who answered a call to the ministry that same year and still pastors at the same Hayden Church of God Church. “I had bought a farm and a combine, and I had a payment of $28,000 to $30,000, and we had a drought, and didn’t make anything. Soybeans made about eight bushels an acre.”I worried and worried and worried and didn’t understand why the Lord didn’t send rain. I was praying every day for God to send rain. I wanted God to work my plan because I had a good plan, and I wanted Him to fulfill my plan. Long story short, at the end of the year, I paid all my indebtedness except $1,500. I won’t ever forget that the Lord impressed it into my heart and mind then just like he was talking to me right there in that truck — and it’s been with me ever since — that He was saying, ‘Trust me and I’ll work things out for you.’ I found that to be true, and I’ve never worried about finances since then.”God has always worked things out for me. It may not work the way I want it to work,” he added, “but God knows what He’s going to do with me to tomorrow.”That’s why, Armstrong says, he would hate to sell the herd that he’s been building a bloodline with for the past 20 years, but will do so if it’s in God’s plan. If it happens, he says, ?I’ll use that time to refurbish my pastures and to break the parasite cycle — I’ll probably try to buy back in … if not this fall, then maybe next fall … and go again. I’m going to do some type of farming. That’s just part of my nature, and it’s part of ministry, too. If you look at it in the right way, I feel like farming is just a partnership with God, and so you just move forward.”