“What’s going on with the newborn calf under the feed shelter?” I asked my husband. “He must have been born last night. He’s cleaned off and alert, so his mama should be back, he said confidently.”
I scanned the pasture, and there wasn’t a cow in sight. The heat was sweltering, and the humidity made it hard to breathe. With the heat index over 100 degrees, the mama likely went to graze before light, and then disappeared into the trees with the others for a much-needed respite from the sun. Calving in summertime is stressful as newborn calves cannot effectively regulate their body temperature. The old saying is to never calve in a month without an “R” in it because the heat can be deadly to newborns. We often buy bred cows, so we have calves all year, but. July and August are the hardest, especially on black calves as they absorb heat more quickly than a light-colored calf.
“Well little fella, you seem content (a good sign that he nursed), and at least your mama didn’t leave you out in the sun,” I said as a looked at him from a distance. Then the inevitable barrage of “what if’s started. What if he didn’t nurse? DId he get enough colostrum? Should I see if he will take a bottle? What if she doesn’t come back? What if he gets dehydrated?
Although this calf was safe, and he was content, I wanted so badly to get in there and do something! I needed to fix this situation, even though in reality, there was nothing that needed fixing. After years of hard, and often painful lessons, I have learned that that sometimes the best, (but the hardest) thing to do is nothing. Sometimes God wants us to trust His process and His plan and stop worrying and trying to push things too fast.
In a couple of hours, his mama came back to let him nurse, and all was right in his world, (and in mine). If I had acted on my first impulse, he could have become frightened and run out into the hot sun. What a great reminder that not only do we need to trust God’s timing, but we need to resist the urge to fix things that are not broken.
Jeremiah 29:11 (NKJV)
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.