The Unseen Plan

Sometime about late afternoon yesterday, another new calf dropped on the ground.  Just like her Moma, she was spade black with a white blotch on her face.  Throughout the day I had been watching the about-to-give birth cow pace back and forth all by herself over on the far side of the pasture.  From the distance I saw a spot of black on the ground and knew immediately the calf had come.  Despite the fact that quite a few calves have been birthed around here these past eight years, it is still a big deal.  We hurried to the truck, parked at the fence line, and for the next hour we watched Moma cow get her new calf ready for life in the pasture.

 

No matter how many times we have been privileged to share in these moments of new beginning, it is always a moment filled with amazement and awe.  I am amazed at the way a switch is pushed and a cow who has never had a calf suddenly knows all the right moves.  And, it is always a moment filled with awe and wonder as the miracle of new life unfolds in our midst.  Spending such moments at the fence line gives a different perspective on all that is going around us.

 

It is certainly true that life is filled with some hard-to-understand-difficult-to-get-through experiences and it is equally as true that given the choice, there are things we would never choose.  Life is not always as easy as it seems out in the pasture where things can go wrong even as they can go wrong on my side of the fence.  But, whenever I watch and behold I am always struck by the way there is such order in creation.  Creation is not something that just happens by chance, but something that works according to a plan.  Even though I am caught up in the plan, I cannot always see it in the moment.  And while I do not know the plan, I do know the One who created the plan.  In those confusing and difficult moments, I am thankful I know the One who knows the plan I cannot yet see.