A Lesson From a Calf

Recently, we have had an unusual guest at our country home. She came to visit because her Mama was unable to care for her and she needed some serious nurturing.

She was just less that four weeks old in this picture and seriously undernourished. Her Mother was sick and unable to nurse her, so she had had very little sustenance. In this picture, she was nothing but skin and bones. She was listless and was developing an ugly eye infection. She also had a cough.


Here is Tristan, one of her caretakers. He pulls her out of her shelter and gets her on her feets. She has been put on formula now and needs to eat three times a day, but is too weak to get on her feet to nurse. It is doubtful that she will live.


You can see the bucket hanging on the fence that has her milk and nipple. We soon realized that she was to weak to suck the nipple for very long. She doesn't get enough on her own. So it becomes necessary to feed her with a turkey baster. Here you see my husband and son getting her milk down her.
After one day of feeding her this way, her eye infection clears up, and her cough disappears. In about three days, she is sucking her nipple and eating everything in her bucket! In less that a week, they increase her ration because she isn't satisfied with 1/2 gallon!

There is a good lesson to learn here. As Christians, we have been given new life that must be sustained by regular "feedings". Those feedings must begin at our "new birth" otherwise we can become stunted in our growth like our little friend above. Lots of sin-sickness can afflict us, the effects of which can follow us all our lives.
The wonderful thing is, that we don't "shrivel up and die" like the calf because our spiritual life force is in Christ. Instead, we can begin to feast on The Word and begin a process of growth that will continue as long as we "eat" and "exercise".
Ladies, it is so easy to neglect our Bibles; we become so busy and there are so many things we "have" to do that we can soon find ourselves with a lagging appetite for His Word. Pretty soon we can become content with other things to fill the void in our hearts. As long as we stay too busy to think about the gnawing hunger in our soul, we will be satisfied with the husks of the flesh.
Let's give as much attention to the health of our spirits, as we do our own bodys!

"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God".


A job well done, my sons!