Season & Purpose

This season for me has been especially difficult. I have several unfinished blogs about it but am still trying to find the right words to finish them. Hopefully you readers will be patient with me.

Early this morning I was out in the barnyard before the sun was up. I was there with my daughter, Erin, who was trying to collect a urine specimen from her horse Belle. She was not being compliant! She has had some new issues develop since her pelvic fracture six weeks ago. Hopefully we will find answers out on her health soon.

The cows gathered around at the fence line outside the barnyard. They are still out grazing on natural grasses on the ranch for another month or so. Cows are by nature very sociable and they can sense something going around the ranch even when they are out of sight. Like this morning for instance. So they wandered in to snoop on what was happening with the horse. I love their inquisitive nature.

Later I was sitting at my desk integrating my blogs into my new website. Last month I was told I needed a new website that reflected Me, as I was soon to become a published book author. My least favorite subject to write about is Me. So, I decided if I had to have a new website, I would encompass all of my writings together.

While integrating I found this devotional I had written for a local women’s church group back in 2021. It was mistakenly saved in my 2021 blog post file, or was it? I’ll let you readers decide.

I had written it shortly after my husband, John, had died and that season was a difficult one too. My favorite passage of scripture is Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 – “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…” It helps remind me that not every season in my life has been difficult nor will be difficult. Today I draw comfort in that and perhaps you will too.

June 21, 2021:

I’m a cow partner on a small ranch. I did not start out as a partner but as a mere cow- sitter. Advancing quickly to cow-manager and then with much blood, sweat and diligent cow-tending settled in as a partner in the cow business. The current arrangement works well as I love the cow herd and am known as a cow whisperer by many. Being with the cows is my reward; it’s something I truly love. The cow management is my part in partner my counterpart handles the crops and land management.

You might ask, what does this have to do with a biblical devotional? Well, it was God’s grace that led me to this rather unconventional partnership. Almost a dozen years ago my oldest daughter had been diagnosed with a form of advancing osteoarthritis, at only 19. She had been schooled in equine therapeutic riding and wanted to purchase a horse of her own to continue it daily.

We live in town. And so, when boarding arrangements fell through the day before she was to pick up the horse, we had to search out a solution. To say my daughter, myself and my husband had much anger and frustration over this initial arrangement being cut off at the last minute would be mildly putting it.

I remember crying out to God, “why?” many times. Why, the arthritis, why the perfect horse and no lodging, why could someone so close be so harsh. I believed my prayers had been unanswered and although I loved these individuals, I carried the bitterness I felt for them a long time.

The night before the horse was to be picked up, I called a long-term friend of the family as he had a ranch close to town, hoping we could secure a short-term place for the horse while we continued looking for a permanent one. As what I would later (well in all honesty years later) recognize, it was not fate nor the stars aligning perfectly, it was God’s plan. Not only for my daughter to have a place to keep her horse but for all our lives to be changed in a positive new direction, and down a path I believe wholeheartedly was God’s plan for us.

Our friend drove long-haul to make ends meet on his ranch and his ranch-hand had just left for another job. He needed someone to tend the cow herd while he was gone. And so, a permanent arrangement was made. Belle, now a beautiful eighteen-year-old Palomino, is still ruling over the mere cattle with her feisty superior personality, in her forever home.

Many seasons have come and gone over my years on the ranch and with them there have been many changes, heartaches, and rejoicing. I often reflect on them at the end of each calving season and with each anniversary of Belle walking off the horse trailer into her paddock by the cows. Remembering the cow’s inquisitive faces, wondering what kind of cow she was.

When our friend retired from long-hauling I wondered if he would no longer need our cow partnership. We all felt such gratitude for him and yet when we spoke about him “saving the day” all those years ago, giving me a life with cows I never knew I even wanted. He replied, “No, you all kept me from having to sell the herd. I owe you so much. I couldn’t find anyone to watch over the herd for what I could pay, and I had to keep my other job in order to keep the ranch.”

God knew. God provided, not only for us but for our friend. God’s grace and abundance even when I was too blind and hard-hearted to see it. I realized God had given us this “season” this “purpose”. He supplied what we not only needed but what he knew we needed more than just the situation itself.

I can still remember to this day that after that conversation I drove the ATV up to my favorite vantage point that looks over the small valley with the creek bubbling through it and the green foliage of the grasses and trees welling over around it and sat watching in awe the beautiful newborn calves running and jumping alongside their mothers and realizing that I would have missed ALL this glory if Belle’s original boarding arrangements had not fell through.

I’m fortunate to be out in God’s beauty every day, in every season, and with every purpose. All at once sitting there with the warmth of the spring’s late afternoon sunlight on my face and the light breath of the cool breeze I felt the hard shell around my heart dissolve and the anger dissipate towards the individuals that had turned my daughter and her horse away, and forgiveness welled up inside me and the weight of it all was lifted. The “whys” of long ago weren’t important, it was the living and trusting God wholeheartedly even when you have those “whys” that is the importance in our faith.

And so, I encourage you to read beyond verse 1 of Ecclesiastes.

Blessings Readers! ~ACW 🙂

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 KJV

A Time for Everything

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.

And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God. I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.

That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.