Farming calls for hope. I hope there's just enough rain at just the right time to bloom the fruit trees and grow the fields. A good crop means food for all the creatures. It means shalom: peace and prosperity...peace of mind for the farmer who keeps watch to ensure there's enough food for everything and prosperity because enough food means life thrives. It's reciprocal: prosperity brings peace because there's enough. No use fighting or fretting over enough.
Hope is holding onto enough. It's also holding onto not enough.
During kidding season, I station myself on a feed sack on the barn floor. I set up a couple portable pens to ensure all new moms have their own space to birth and bond with their new baby(ies). I am keen to her body; looking and watching for signs of labor. Sometimes I am right...most of the time I am wrong.
Like yesterday, we had two goats deliver and I anticipated more does to drop. One big girl was grunting and grinding her teeth, secluding herself in a corner...all signs baby is coming. All day we waited, we watched...nothing. Got up early this morning, while it was still dark, to check on her. Two black and white kids greeted me outside the birthing pen.
"How'd they get out?" I wondered to myself...
They were another doe's kids. A doe who showed NO SIGNS of labor the previous day.
It's moments like these I laugh at myself. I have no control over life or death. I have no control over timing or events. The plans for creation move forward with or without me and my insightful knowledge of biology.
During the COVID19 global pandemic, we need to hold onto hope. This means we fully expect a good outcome while fully expecting a bad outcome.
Seems impossible, right? Doesn't make sense. But it's true.
The Hebrew word for "hope," tikva, means an "expectation; literally a cord, an attachment" (https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H8615&t=NASB)
We become attached to our expectations. I expected baby goats out of the doe in the birth pen. I expected that if I watched and waited and researched and prepared and knew enough then I'd be ready for what I expected to come.
In life and in the barn, we don't always get what we expected...
Another goat mama had two kids a few days ago. All were doing well. Then, unexpectedly, mom rejected one. We found him near death early one morning. We brought him into the house, hoping to revive him. But it was too late.
So when I sit on the feed sack in the barn, I think about my attachment to my expected outcome. I think about the tension in that cord being stretched out: fully expecting good and fully expecting bad. Loss of life is the worst bad. And I expect it. Little happy jumping goat kids is one of the best goods. And I expect it.
So in light of our global barn situation: are we expecting the worst bad at the same time we are expecting the best good? How do we do that? What does that look like?
For today, the worst bad I expect is everyone I know and love will get COVID19. At the same time, I expect no one I know and love will get COVID19. Am I prepared for both?
Of course not.
Because hope has nothing to do with preparation. Remember, I don't have control. I can prepare as much as I am able. I do my diligence to maintain social distance, wear a mask in public, wash my hands, don't touch my face...that may or may not be enough.
So, what is enough? Shalom. Peace and prosperity. Who gives me peace? Jesus Christ. He is the Prince of Peace. After Jesus Christ was resurrected, He appeared to His disciples greeting them, "Peace be with you." (John 19:20-31).
The disciples had locked themselves inside too...not afraid of a virus but of the Jewish leaders who wanted to kill them. Jesus showed them His wounds. He reminded them of why He came and why He was leaving but assured them He would return. They believed Him. They believed what He told them was true.
Jesus is the Light of the World. Jesus is our hope that this life as we know it is not all there is. There was, and is, and is more to come. As believers, we fully expect God is in control. We have faith that He is all good, all the time. We love God and we love others (Deu 6:5). No matter what comes.
We love God and we love others while we bury our hope. We love God and we love others when we rejoice in life. We love God and we love others in our grief. We love God and we love others in our joy.
We keep going. We keep expecting good and we keep expecting bad. And ultimately we keep loving.
Shalom. Peace be with you.
