I was a witness, taking heart notes as Daddy fought all night to save the calf.
We’d just come home late from a Broadway play.
It was about a lion cub that was so overcome with guilt, he forgot who he was and how much his family needed him.
So on his knees, still wearing dress pants, Daddy cradled the calf with his body, trying to help her breathe.
Violent, cold wind stirred his voice over the Farm, Come on, girl. You’ve got to try. You need to live.
My job was to hold the light.
While I watched the farmer fight Death for an animal, a burning thought distracted me from the cold.
I thought of rumors I’d heard about God, how eventually He gives up on some people.
The rumor is somehow always spread by people He never gave up on.
But I’m no theologian; I’m just a witness.
My job is to hold the light.
As the hours passed through the night, Daddy wrestled the heavy, limp baby, doing what its mother refused to do.
She wandered out of the barn beneath silver-blue clouds, perhaps to tell the other cows it was too late for this one, that the farmer might as well give up.
My heart let the question form honestly: God, they say You give up on people. What do You think about that?
Daddy was building a straw shelter around the calf to shield the wind. He was relentless, hands numb from formula flowing over his knuckles.
Giving up was not an option.
God was there watching with me, helping me hold the light steady between shivers.
He was answering the question right in front of me.
Just like another, similar question that has ridden shrieking wind through thousands of years, Psalm 22:1…
My God, My God! Why have You forsaken Me?
Those words are often left hanging at Easter, the Psalm switched off at Verse 1 before the good part.
It was the Pharisees who brought it up first, Psalm 22, when they mocked Him with verse 8 (see Matthew 27:43).
So Jesus answered them by using what precious little breath He had left to quote the first verse of Psalm 22…
My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?
And then the last…
It is FINISHED.
As if to say, Read it all. The whole thing is about Me, and My Father did not abandon Me…
No! He has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
He has not hidden His face from Him
but He has listened to his cry for help.
{Psalm 22:24}
God does not abandon anyone, because He never fails.
He promised to never leave us or forsake us.
He has not given up on you, or me, or the people we love.
He has listened.
~
Morning grayed the sky, cold but gentle.
Disoriented with exhaustion I looked at the clock and realized it was Friday, March 30.
Good Friday.
I watched Daddy hoist the swaddled, helpless creature into the warm cab of his truck and drive off toward the vet’s office.
With the sun resurrected I could see the whole farm waking. The cabin window glowed where Mama waited to hear what she already knew—that Daddy never gave up on his calf.
And I got to hold the light.
~
Psalm 139
For the director of music. Of David. A song.
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in hell, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How amazing are your thoughts toward me,[a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
…
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
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Another great true story. And we got to see your Daddy. You are absolutely the greatest storyteller that we have ever ever met. We always make sure we have a Kleenex when we read your stories. With Love 💕
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Sometimes the testimony of the light holder/witness, can save many more than the one Good Cowboy in this story.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. John 14:12
You go! Sally Sunshine
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You are a light in this world and you hold it very well.
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Thank you for your love, dear friend.