Dairy Cows

When I was about fourteen years old, my dad took me to work every Saturday in Churchville, Maryland.  I worked for an old lady who had a fifty-acre estate.  I worked every Saturday while in school and forty hours a week in the summer.  She paid me twenty dollars a day.  Good money for a teenager back then.  On the way to work, we passed a dairy farm of Holstein dairy cows.  The farmer had acreage on both sides of the little country road.  The cows grazed in a large field on one side of the road and were milked on the other side of the road.  Occasionally, on the way home, we would have to wait for the cows as they crossed the road.  About milking time, the cows would gather near the gate in the field.  The farmer would open the barnyard gate, cross the road, and then open the field gate.  The cows would calmly go through the gate, walk across the road, and walk into the barnyard lot near the milking parlor.  But that’s not all.  The cows knew which of the three herds that they were in.  When the farmer opened the barn door to the milking parlor, only herd “A” cows would walk into the milking parlor and each cow knew exactly which one of the forty stalls to go to!  When they were finished being milked, they would exit another door and the next forty cows in herd “B” would come in to be milked!  Each cow knew her herd and each cow knew her stall.  Each cow knew when and where to be, and each cow knew when to come in and go out.  Paul said in I Corinthians 14:40, “Let all things be done decently and in order.”  If cows can be calm and orderly, why can’t we humans be calm and orderly?  I think we need to visit the farm in Churchville, Maryland, don’t you?!

 

Overhead Kitchen Cabinet Doors

 

Telling my four children what to do was relatively easy but telling my wife what to do was another thing.  First of all, she wouldn’t do what I told her to do, and second of all, it wasn’t my place.  You see my dear wife is an adult just like I am.  Actually, most of the time, she is more mature than I am.  But that never stopped me from trying to tell her what to do.  Years ago, I was frustrated because she kept leaving the overhead kitchen cabinet doors open.  She is a shortie and could walk under the open doors, but I would come around the corner and crack my head on them all the time.  One day after I harangued about the open doors, she stopped, turned around facing me, and said, “Does it bother you that I leave the kitchen cabinet doors open?”  I felt that I was finally making progress and said, “Yes, it does!”  To which she replied, “Well, I am putting you in charge of closing the kitchen cabinet doors.”  With that, she turned and walked away.  Although that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, I was satisfied.  From then on, when my wife left the overhead kitchen cabinet doors open, I closed them because it was my job.  Paul said in Colossians 3:12&13, “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”  Hey, just as Christ forgave me of my sins and shortcomings, I should forgive my wife when she crosses me.  “Forbearing” means to give the other person a pass.  Let it go.  Don’t make it a big deal.  Am I glad Jesus forgave me?  Yes, I am.  Should I forgive my dear wife?  Yes, I should.  The bottom line is to love and be loved.  Always has.  Always will be.

Granny Whitely

When I was growing up, it seemed to me that Granny Whitely had always been old.  But she was old in a good sense: she was old enough to get respect from everyone else, but young enough to have fun with.  I remember Granny Whitely taking out her false teeth and chasing us around with a broom pretending to be an old witch.  And she would wear these old pants to go swimming in.  She called them “pear-shaped”.  At the time I didn’t know why, but later I realized that “pear-shaped” was a spoof on her figure.  Granny got a Social Security check each month, and she got a check from the federal government as a widow from her husband who died on the job in the coal mines in West Virginia.  In order to get her coal miner’s pension check each month, Granny had to mail in an affidavit that she was still alive.  So, Granny would sign the paper and let one of us grandchildren countersign the paper.  We felt very responsible when we signed the government document.  No one in Washington D.C. knew that we were just ten or twelve years old.  That was my introduction to bureaucracy.  Like Granny Whitely, I want to leave a legacy of fun.  I want my five grandchildren to know that their Granddaddy Whitely loved them and that he loved God.  Solomon said in Proverbs 16:31, “The hoary (gray) head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.”  May all that see this gray head know that I love the Lord because He is my crown of glory!