Dad and I went out to do the evening chores. As usual, our big gray cow, Pauline, came into the barn to be milked. Dad noticed she was limping on her right front leg. However, she seemed to be fine otherwise and was eating as usual, which was a good sign.
I lifted her hoof, and examined it and found a swollen area on her leg right above the hoof. After Dad had milked her, he held her hoof while I tried to clean off the mud and then cleaned out between the two halves of the hoof. Since I work for a vet, I have my own tool for jobs like this. With my tool and my fingers, I dug around between the two halves, up where they join together, and that’s where my tool hit something hard.
Dad held on tightly to try to keep Pauline from moving while I reached in and felt around with my fingers. Aha! I found a stone in there, but it was stuck pretty tightly. I had to stick my fingers way in, feeling around before I could get a grip on the stone. Aha again, as I pulled it out triumphantly and held it up. It was a wedge-shaped, triangular stone, about a fourth the size of a golf ball. It had to have been very painful for her to walk with that big stone stuck in there!
We led her out into the lean-to, which is a shed open on the front side, and she walked better than before. We decided to keep her in the lean-to overnight and fed her some hay in there. That was so she wouldn’t have to walk in the mud to get her hay that we kept in another place.
Poor Pauline, there was no way she could have gotten that stone out by herself, no matter how hard she tried. It took a special tool to reach in where the stone was stuck, and then it also took my fingers to grasp the stone to pull it out. Once again she was a happy cow. If she could have talked, I think she would have said, “THANK YOU!”
Each of you boys and girls have a difficult problem called sin. But like Pauline who couldn’t pull out the stone by herself, you can’t get rid of your sins by yourself. However, there is a way to have all your sins washed away. The Bible tells us who can do that for you: “The blood of Jesus Christ [God’s] Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)). God’s very own Son loves every one of us so much that He wants us to live with Him in heaven someday. However, we can’t live with Him if we still have our sins. They must be washed away! Once you’ve let Jesus wash them away, you will be so very happy and relieved to have them gone forever! Then the door to heaven is open for you.
Next morning Dad told me Pauline was walking without a limp, eating and acting normal and gave a normal amount of milk. How thankful we were to have found that pesky stone and removed it for her. And we are thankful that we took care of the problem and didn’t decide to just “keep an eye on it.” Pauline is a “happy” cow once again, and we are happy too.
And every person who has come to the Lord Jesus to have his or her sins washed away is a very happy person to know their sins are gone! They can happily look forward to living with Jesus in heaven someday.
ML-04/22/2018