2016 was a hard year for me and my family. It was one of
those years that you look at the circumstances and wonder how any good (or
beautiful) could come out of it. Nothing looks right. In May of 2016 an
epidemic went through our cattle barns where we fed our weaned calves. It was
like a respiratory disease like they couldn’t breathe. They would stand there
with their heads hanging low and loud labored breathing and there they would
stand until it just became too much.
In one horrible week
we lost almost half of what we had housed in the barns. It began on a Sunday
night and was mostly over by the next Sunday. All during that week, we lived
like in a fog. The normal question every morning became “How many died last
night?” It was a nightmare. I remember the Tuesday of that week. I had gone to
the barn to do my normal chores but headed down to the barns to check on
things. We had turned the calves out on clean grass and the healthy were
milling around, but then the sick. As I stood there, I looked around at the
healthy eating, but looking in the barns there were two or three dead and
another heifer, leaned up against the fence that as I looked at her, looked
like any moment would be the last.
Our family was unsure of what this was. We had veterinarians
and laboratories investigating samples and causes, but nothing. No one knew
what this was, no one had ever seen anything like this before and no one knew
how to treat it.
The first day after the epidemic began, Mom gathered all of
us who were home in the living room, and on our knees we asked God for help and
guidance. We asked if there was sin involved, would He reveal it, but it was
quiet and the epidemic continued.
Then there was Elsie. Elsie was mine, the treasured calf of
my cow Belle. Elsie was weaned and we had put her down in the barns to feed out
until she was old enough to be breed. Elsie was the best. She was so much fun.
She was my calf, but Dad’s little girl. Elsie could be naughty just to be
naughty, but she knew Dad would never lift a finger against her. One day, Dad
was down in the barns looking over some calves and he set his coffee cup down
in a ledge. Elsie looked at that cup, walked over an flicked that cup off the ledge,
knowing full well, she could get away with it. Elsie had quite the personality.
She was perfect.
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| (Elise at a few hours old) |
Elsie was sick on the second day. I stood there rubbing on her and I told her that everything would be alright, but I couldn’t stop it.
She died Wednesday night. I was asleep, never dreaming what
a nightmare my life had just become. The next morning Mom asked to talk with me
and I just knew. Sobbing, I ran down the hill to where Belle was peacefully
grazing and threw myself onto her. Losing Elsie just ripped me open.
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| (The last picture I have of my baby) |
My other calf Sweet Pea died that Friday. Sweet Pea was a
cripple. Her leg had been broken when she was born and I remember that night
out in the dark helping bandage her leg. She and her mother were moved to the
barn and I bottle fed Sweet Pea for the next few months. However, no amount of
bandaging could save her leg and so Sweet Pea learned to move around on 3 ½
legs. Against all odds, Sweet Pea grew. She died at 3 years old.
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| (Sweet Pea and me the day before she died) |
After a very long narrative, I get to this.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
“He hath made every thing beautiful in
His time..”
The epidemic ended. To this day we have no solid answers to
why any of that happened. No medical answers ever came back. Nothing.
For me, it was Job test. Job lost his children, his wealth,
and his health or no apparent reason. God gave no answers to the righteous Job,
He gave no explanations. Job was asked to trust. It was God’s sovereignty.
In the Christian community today, I think we look too much to
the judgment side of God. What if we are suffering, it is for reasons of our
own doing, our sin. No, go!
Look at David, the man after God’s own heart, exiled into the
wilderness through no doing of his own, he is hunted down with the intent to
end his life. Was that David’s fault? No, it was God’s sovereignty.
In life’s nightmares do I see God’s sovereignty? Am I trusting
fully in the dark tunnels with no light in sight? Am I leaning fully in the
everlasting arms in the valleys? Do I trust that everything and I means
everything in my life is beautiful in God’s eyes? I should. Learning to trust
my Heavenly Father so fully that I count everything as beautiful…especially the
hard stuff.
This is where the Christian life’s rubber meets the road. This is
where the world sees the Christian life for what it is…for who we are.
Ecclesiastes
3:11 “He hath made every thing
beautiful in His time..”
Trust in that. Be confident in those words. Look to the Father who
holds you in the palm of His hand. He will make it all completely beautiful.
