Looks worse than it is

When the husband says he needs help, someone hurt themselves it’s not what you think. He is not a doctor or a  day care provider, he is simply a farmer. So, who is someone? probably an animal… I played in school early and returned home to see the farmer running hot water into a big white tub in the kitchen sink. “Someone hurt themselves” was interpreted as one of the horses is hurt.  Now the farmer is rather unobservant.  I will ask him if he does the chores how everyone is and his answer is upright. If all the horses are moving on four legs, he figures they are fine and when they rush him for hay and start eating, all is well. When I check on horses, I feel them over, check their legs, rub my hands down their backs, look at their eyes, feel their muzzles and basically do a very complex job of making sure they are upright and walking. The farmer did observe something the other day; blood. Not just blood but lots of blood. Blood all over. That is not normal in a horse pasture. A little blood would have been a concern but a lot of blood. And, he didn’t see the blood right away, he saw that someone had kicked a big hole in his lean to! His lean to; not the horses lean to. Then he had to begin checking over horses to see which one of the brown and black horses had red on them.  And even though farmer is non emotional, I think it worried him about the vast amount of blood that had been shed.  A small cut- washed, put iodine on it and put her back out. It’s clean- snow is clean and it’s cold! Awesome time of the year for a cut. Last night we bound her cut up a bit more with compression and vet wrap and duct tape.  No fresh blood in the pasture this a.m. And I did look over everyone a bit more as I pulled the wagon of hay around and spread it for the woolly beasts.

We tend to see things and think it’s bad. When we get in the middle of cleaning up the mess we can often hear ourselves saying, “well that’s not too bad now was it”. Perhaps we say it to sooth others that we are helping because in our minds things always blow up and get bigger.

Matthew 6 has some  of my favorite verses..vs 25 .“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life”   In my world there are days that I could interpret that as, “Don’t look at it so closely- it’s not as bad as it looks.”  There are days when tomorrow looks horrifying.  The signs of the day seem to indicate it will be a doozy- blazing with both barrels and shooting right at me. And I don’t worry by the way- I just am very concerned with added emphasis on the very.  By the look of the blood in the pasture, we had a dead horse. I have made suppositions based on the looks of things and usually God is laughing because he knows its not that bad.  Why, then, do I make it seem like it is life threatening? Based on the looks of things, I need to worry… and worry alot.  God wants me to not be VERY CONCERNED even when there seems to be all indications this is the last straw, and remember who gave me life, who gave me food, who gave me my body, who always seems to make sure I have the basics.. And then he compares my existence with a bird. Of all things, a bird.  A bird… birds poop all over. Birds hit windshields. Birds lay nests in the eaves in my barn and make a mess. Birds also are beautiful to watch, they are great mothers, they are creative in building and making a home and birds will never let a storm keep them from the birdfeeder.   So I need to remind myself that often things look worse than they are but also that God is bigger than how ever much blood is all over the white snow. He has got my life. If he can handle making it work for the birds who make a mess all over the farm, the deck, the trees and the barn, then I think he can make my life; one of which has much more complexities than the birds, he can make my life doable.. And if there is alot of mess lying all over the ground, well then perhaps God has some things for me to think about while I clean them up and I have a feeling God will make that clean up also. He has an awesome track record of making things whiter than snow… Of course the horse pastures are still quite colored she is walking normal and baring her ears back at others today.  Life goes on… and the purple and pink vet wrap and duct tape is still around the hoof.