It was a hot, humid day on July 5th of my 13th year. My father and I had worked hard to pour a large concrete slab by a barn on our dairy farm. It had been a really tough day and now it was time to milk the cows for the afternoon. My job was usually to go gather the cows from the various places they may be grazing and head them to the barn. That day though, my father said he would take care of that if I would go catch his horse. Riding horseback to round up our dairy cows was a way to combine a bit of pleasure with a routine job and I jumped at the chance not to have to head out in the 100 degree plus heat.
It was no problem for me to catch our horse, Stockings, named for his two white 'stockings' on his front legs. He was pretty much a family pet who could not resist an edible treat if I took it to him. I tied him to a metal farm implement that we hooked to the back of our tractor to move heavy objects. It was standing by itself, like a tripod near the shed where we kept the saddles and tack. Stockings began to munch grass near the shed and I headed toward the back door of our house to cool off.
Half way to the door I heard a clanking sound and the sound of hoof beats. A sick feeling hit the bottom of my stomach, I just caught a glimpse of Stockings as he ran full speed past the front of our house and down the one lane country road that we lived on. I called for my father as I had a feeling something was terribly wrong. We found the heavy metal tripod I had tied Stockings to about twenty feet from where I had left him. As he had grazed he pulled the rope around his neck and it had pulled on the tripod and it had tipped over. The sound spooked him and he began to run away from this thing now dragging at his heels. The rope had broken but in his fright, Stockings had kept on running.
He now stood in the middle of our road in an awkward stance. As my father and I approached him, we began to see drops of blood on the pavement. The drops turned into scattered pools. My father was ahead of me and I heard him exclaim, "His foot is nearly cut off." As the metal implement fell at Stockings feet, his left rear leg had caught a sharp edge on the tripod. The edge had caught him about six inches above the hoof and it had cut everything from the back of his leg to the bone. His left rear hoof now flopped painfully when he tried to put weight on it. We looked at him in stunned silence. I felt awful. One the rules my father had taught me in handling horses was never tie them to something they could hurt themselves on. I had broken that rule and now the consequences were painfully clear.
A vet looked at him and said there was nothing that could be done. We tried to nurse Stockings over the next day but it was clear that he was in too much pain with too severe and injury to ever recover. I watched from our back porch as my father walked up to Stockings, with a rifle in hand to put him down. My dad did not look at him except to pull the trigger. Stockings fell quickly and silently. My father walked slowly to the back porch. There were still tears in my father's eyes as he put the rife away. I wished in that moment that I had not been born.
Though there was no blame put on me by my family, I had plenty to put on myself. I vowed I would learn from this, I would be more careful. I would work harder and without being asked I would get up every morning at 4:00 am like my father did and help him with the whole morning milking instead of just the morning chores I usually did. I would somehow make up for this. But the guilt of that day faded to a dull remorse and many times I would wake up and realize I had not kept my vow. The guilt remained and I learned there is no making up for a loss of life.
I did not know what to do with that experience until some time later. I had goal of reading through the Bible cover to cover before I got out of high school. When I got to Malachi, I came across a verse that gradually dawned on me as a way God had for me to deal with this. Malachi 3:17 says, "They will be mine," says the Lord Almighty, "in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him."
That verse began to change my life. I realized my father and my family had shown me compassion. There was nothing I could do that would make me not be my father's son. My father was not raising me to be a mistake free hired hand but to be a son who worked with him. There was compassion and forgiveness from my heavenly Father to deal with even this kind of guilt. I began to give it to Him and know His "sparing" of me and the release of the guilt.
From time to time my failures grow painfully clear to me but I am reminded that my Heavenly Father is not in the business of making me a hired hand but a son who serves Him. I am to Him, even with all my flaws, His "treasured possession." And if you are "His" then He says the same thing over you and He wants to do the same thing in you. And that is how an obscure verse from Malachi changed, and keeps changing, my life.
For the journey...
Tim
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