Merry Christmas, Bred Heifers, Repentance and Forgiveness
Christmas in the 60s is fine by me. Not much farm news to update on. Last weekend was busy with markets and meat deliveries. No market this Saturday.
On Monday Hallie and Hasten got back in the calf pen to help push calves up the chute to the head gate for my dad and brother. That afternoon we had a cattle drive, bringing a group of our heifers to the barn from a mile out the road. I led the cattle from the front. Hallie and Wren followed them out of the pen and down the gravel road from behind. Amy and Carter were waiting at the stop sign to block vehicles coming up the hard top road, while Hasten was stationed at the top to block cars and turn the cows into the barn lane. All went well. Thankfully. They’re not always that cooperative.
Tuesday morning the vet came to preg check our heifers. Amy worked the head gate and took care of the tagging. The kids kept the heifers moving from the tub through the chute. I kept refilling the tub with more heifers as they were moving them out. When it was all said and done, we ended up with 82 bred heifers that will calve in the spring. Then our cattle working crew switched back to the traffic control team to get them back out the road and on pasture, the bred heifers in one field, the open ones in another with another herd. Deep breath and sigh of relief after all cattle drives are complete and cows back content in the fields.
Aside from that, nothing super notable. Keeping cows, pigs, and chickens fed is quick to type but a bit more time consuming in actuality. Thankfully water hasn’t been as much of a challenge this week with warmer temperatures.
On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we took care of chores: making the rounds to check animals, feeding, watering, collecting eggs. And then doing very little otherwise. Hanging out with family and taking it easy. Well, I say “taking it easy” but those who know Amy know that she’s not really the take it easy type. Though she did take a break from teaching this week, she didn’t take much of a break from anything else. Working cows, wrapping gifts, mopping floors, baking, and reading Christmas stories to the kids.
Thankful for this Christmas season. Thankful for family and friends and neighbors and community. Messed up and different as we all are. Christmas is not just a time for family; it’s the ultimate family story. God becoming flesh to invite a broken world into his perfect family. Jesus’s earthy family was far from perfect. His family tree was full of broken branches. While their faults didn’t disqualify them receiving an invitation into God’s family, it was their faith in him that accepted that invitation.
From Genesis to Revelation, Jesus’s family was messed up. We might expect the perfect heavenly Father to have a perfect earthly family. No such family was to be found. Even if there was, would loving a perfect family accomplish a perfect love? It’s easy to love something flawless. A much greater love is required to love something broken. An even greater love still that transforms that something broken into something whole.
Love, being voluntary, means that this transformation is voluntary. He will not force us into his family without our willingness to be transformed. He won’t force us into his loving family if we choose not to love likewise. Given that we are all broken and trying to love our families who are in different ways broken, this perfect love seems simple to conceptualize, though it’s far from easy to embody.
Two aspects of a perfect love within a messed up family: repentance and forgiveness. I don’t know which is harder. Neither come easy to me. Though it’s hard enough to forgive someone who wrongs us, I think it’s even harder to admit when we wrong others. It’s much easier to blame whatever the problem is on somebody else. Or on everybody else. And often justifiably so.
Our families are fragmented because we are all flawed. Meaning we are all at least in part responsible for the breaking. We will all at times be on the problem side of the problem.
We’re all going to make decisions that hurt those around us. Maybe not intentionally or malevolently, but we’re all going to contribute, at least in part, to the brokenness of our family. Repentance is the cure for the pain we cause to others. Forgiveness is the cure for the pain others bring to us.
In most scenarios, faults will be on both sides of whatever the problem. When our kids have conflict, as all siblings do, rarely is it one completely right and other completely wrong. Usually, both partially contributing to the wrong but believe themselves to be completely in the right. Being in the right isn’t the glue that keeps us together, it’s the willingness to admit to our part of the wrong.
More times than not, the solution to our kids’ conflicts are found when both repent. And when both forgive. The same solution holds true not just with children but with all of God’s children. Without repentance, broken things stay broken. Without forgiveness, broken things stay broken. Repentance and forgiveness not only restores, it does so in a way that builds an even stronger bond than what existed before.
Thankful for our Father’s perfect love. And for inviting us all into it.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Will