Wednesday, January 04, 2006

I'm Proud of you Lil Girl!

Today was a challenge...one of the kinda that parents hope they don't have to face very often, but that seem to pop up from time to time to remind us of how fragile life is.

My 17 year old daughter has hopes to begin a career as a wildlife rehabilitationist. She is the type that can go out into the wild and sit down for a few minutes to suddenly find herself surrounded by all kinds of wildlife. She has mice crawl onto her lap, birds land on her shoulder etc. A girl after her "Wilderness Awareness Teacher" Daddy's heart.

Well she decided that she wanted to adopt a lil lamb that was born with a selenium deficiency. This crippling disease produces very fragile, almost arthritic bone structures in the animal. Mandy would diligently every day massage it's legs, and try to teach it to walk. It followed her around like she was the lamb's mama. I think I could even hear it say "Mama" sometimes as the lamb looked up into Mandy's eyes as she would hold it close to her.

A few days ago, the deficiency caused one of the rear legs to break. Mandy held on to all hope, but today she decided that the suffering of the lamb was too much for the little thing to take anymore. She made the hard decision to put the lamb down to save it from suffering and pain, even at the expense of her own pain. What a mature decision she made...and I as her daddy am so very proud of her. I love you my little girl.

As I gazed at the lamb looking up into my eyes in the last minutes...filled with trust and love, I thought about another lamb. "YHWSHUA, the Lamb of the World who was slain to take away our sins." How much the Father YHWH must have loved HIM and how much pain must HE have felt at HIS death as YHWSHUA looked into HIS eyes... filled with trust and love. But the sadness wasn't because HE died, for YHWH knew that HE would rise again on the 3rd day. Why, then would YHWH have been so sad, so grieved? I believe it was because the great price that was paid for our sins... has been rejected by so many. And above that, those that "say" that they receive the gift, Myself included, have responded with such little love and devotion in return. We are rather flippant about the gift that YHWH gave us. Saying that we love HIM, but continuing to walk in our own ways.

Today, perhaps it is time for us to refresh and renew our commitment to YHWH. To stop living so much for ourselves and to begin to bring joy to HIS heart. How can we do that? Well I think that our Lil Lamb... and the Lamb of the World taught me a lesson that might be valuable to each of us. The Father had to watch HIS Son... looking up at HIM as HE died. I believe that the greatest joy we could bring YHWH today, and every day, would be to look up into HIS eyes ourselves...with Love and Trust in HIM... no longer to die, but with gratitude and thanksgiving that we have eternal life!

"YHWSHUA said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?" John 11:25,26

Shalom V' Ahavah...
David

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's sad. Sometimes life brings hard decisions, but in the end they make our character a little more golden than before.

Anonymous said...

Hello Dave,

I got to thinking about you guys today, and went in search of your website. I found this, and thought I'd leave a comment.

YHWH Bless you guys!

Love,
-Becka S.