Trying to see the "Good" in some Fridays.

It was 'Hawk,' 

Levi's hen.

She was one of the first hens we had gotten for our shed-turned-chicken-coop.

It is hard to let a pet go, even when they've had a good, full life.

Violet carried her little body out to the pasture after she'd found it lying in the pen this morning.

I didn't see her, but I'm sure there were tears.

 Those chickens are her pets more than anybody's.

It didn't feel very much like a good Friday.

The spring weather has been an extra cold one,
and the flower beds need for me to get into them
to prepare for the plant sale so quickly creeping up.

It's another of the unpredictables that comes with farm life;...

just like the situation earlier in the week when one of the heifers was acting sick,

kicking and licking at her side and her tail.

We worried she'd eaten something,

maybe a piece of metal last week when they'd managed to get out of their pen and rummaged through the barn alley.

We'd called the vet because the loss of her would be too great,

to our pocketbooks or to our freezer,

if deemed necessary;

but the vet said she must have eaten something that affected her because it looked like just a gassy stomach ache.

It was just another one of those things that doesn't really make sense,

but it was better than what could have been...

and even more of a blessing that Violet hadn't gotten hurt when she and I had tried to help the vet get the heifer into the headlock and she'd revolted,

 her wild, black furred body smashing up against the gate,

 squishing Violet between it and the post. 

 I worried for her wrists or her face the way she'd been hit, but thankfully, she'd only gotten a scrape on her leg.

No, not a good day, or much of a good week either.

My farmer has had to fill in at work extra, working 6 days a week every other week.

It has frustrated me to see him: tired, the jobs around the farm getting stacked up on his endless "to-do" list,

worrying that the onslaught of spring and summer won't show him pity with their "to-do" agenda.

 It is easy to let frustrations build and fester,

to get angry at inconveniences.

And then this morning, I heard about a serious car wreck involving a young mother whose life is hanging in the balance, critically wounded.

 

The good of life, sometimes, seems to get muddled in the little frustrations;

but life can be excruciating when blasted by the hard situations that knock the breath right out of our bodies. 

"Why is it called 'Good Friday,' Mom?"

Levi disrupted my thoughts as I was washing the floor, cleaning up a mid-morning mess.

"Oh, because Jesus died for our sins," I explained.

"It surely wasn't too good a day for Him, though, was it?  

I mean, it was, because He showed His love for us by dying,

but it wasn't a very nice way to have to spend the day.

It was a bad day, but it was a good day."

And then I thought about my own words.

Jesus knew the frustrations of days that didn't turn out nicely,

a manger birth; sudden, uncomfortable trips; being left behind at the temple;

the struggle of a job in the carpentry shop.

He knew what it was to be hungry and cold, to face a storm,

to be alone in a wilderness,
to feel abandoned by friends in the Garden of Gethsemane;

He knew the pain of loss: the death of his adopted father,

of His cousin John, of his friend Lazarus.
He knew the sorrow of pain in the heart and the hurt of pain in the flesh.

Jesus lived on earth.

I thought of the words I had read as I ate my breakfast,

"Be careful for nothing;

but in every thing by prayer and supplication

with thanksgiving

let your requests be made known unto God.

 And the peace of God,

which passeth all understanding,

shall keep your hearts

and minds

through Christ Jesus."

Philippians 4:6-7

Sometimes, when frustrations appear, the only thing we can do is pray...

with thanksgiving,

which seems two contradictory terms when there is pain included;
it seems hard to even mention them together.

But it is only through that stretch of prayer that we can rest in God's peace

because He is the only one who can see the whole picture.

He knows the reasons that we cannot earthly see.

 

He holds the key in understanding the why of a 'Good Friday'

because He owns Resurrection Sunday...

With guilt, I realized my mistake as I spoke the words to Levi...

my perspective of 'good' is often narrowed by my idea of it.

I thanked the Lord for this Good Friday as I saw Violet's muddy boots from the pasture,

and I prayed I'd remember it for the tomorrows, too.