I greatly appreciate all the readers I have from across the nation and other countries of the world. I count it a privilege to be able to write. I’m so glad the Lord can use somebody like me to bless other people in this way. In doing so, I am greatly blessed.
I have received many responses over the years on the different stories I’ve written. I feel I must respond to one response I got from a dairy farmer in Texas who was very honest and forthright and wrote: “You always tell us about the good things that happen on your farm and how God answers your prayers; you don’t tell us about your losses.” Well, my Texas farmer is pretty much correct.
Do we have losses and difficult situations on our farm here? Definitely yes. I have to look back two winters ago when we had whole-herd pneumonia go through our dairy herd. We had so many of our cows come down with pneumonia. We were buying a lot of medicine from our vet to treat our cows. He told us, “You may have over half your herd die from this. You’ve done everything right with taking care of your cattle, including vaccinating them, but sometimes this still happens.”
Day after day, we would get up early in the morning and go out and milk the cows. After that, we would do the other barn chores and then treat all the sick cows. I, with the help of my family, IV-ed so many cows with antibiotics. Every cow we treated we prayed over. We thanked God for each cow and asked Him to bless the work of our hands in taking care of them. We also prayed the medicine would work well and that each of our cows would recover and not die. Then at night, we would do our chores again and then go back to treating cows like we did that morning. Oftentimes, we wouldn’t get in until after midnight. For a few days, we only got a few hours of sleep every night.
In time, we got through this all. It certainly wasn’t easy. Did we lose any cows, you ask? Yes and no. We didn’t have any cows die that winter, although we had a lot of extremely sick cows. Our milk production dropped way down too. Our vet told us that we could have a number of them die the next summer in the extreme heat and humidity because of the damage to their lungs. Well, the summer heat and humidity came, and we had a number of them start breathing extremely hard. Instead of seeing them suffer so, and possibly die, we ended up culling some of them.
By God’s grace, we made it through that battle. Was it easy? No. But through prayer and God answering our prayers, we made it through and are still dairy farming today. God never promised us an easy life, but He did promise to see us through.
“In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33, KJV)
If He overcame the world and He lives in me, then I, too, can overcome the world as I look to Him.
Will we have losses in this world? Definitely yes. We live in a fallen world. But, I know as I look to my Lord, He will see me through. There are times, like when we had all those sick cows, if I couldn’t go to the Lord in prayer, I don’t know what I would do. God says in His word to call out to Him in the day of trouble, and I most certainly do. Yes, I do have losses, but I keep my eyes on my Lord, and He sees me through them all. He is faithful.
