Warning! The Cows Are Out!

Warning!  The Cows Are Out!

We raised our sons on the family farm, about 140 acres, located thirty miles east of Dallas, Texas.  It was a family-friendly, rural area where you drove into down to the post office, went to Dallas for supplies, hunted on your own land, and raised your own beef, pigs, and chicken.  Kids were busy with livestock projects in FFA and FHA; translated for city folks – Future Farmers of America and Future Homemakers of America.  Neighbors kept an eye on your house when you were gone.  You always left a key over the top of the door in case someone needed to get in while you were gone.  If your kids were out doing something they shouldn’t, you would receive a minimum of three phone calls telling you about it – even if it wasn’t really your kids, just a car that looked like theirs.  It was a wonderful place of community, solitude, and serenity. 

One night, about 11 p.m., after falling asleep on the couch waiting for the boys to return home, I was awakened by a phone call.  A neighbor was calling to ask if our boys were home and to let us know that one of the neighbors on our long, dark, country road had a fence down.  As a result, his Black Angus cows were all over and all along the roadway.  Only about a month earlier, the principal of the local high school had been involved in a serious accident when she had hit an escaped cow in her Jeep.  She had been hospitalized and completely totaled her vehicle.  Our boys weren’t home and weren’t due home for about thirty minutes.  As with the night of the principal’s wreck, this night was a moonless night, dark and cloudy.  It was almost impossible to see anything around the curves of the long and obscured road. 

Of course, the first thing I did was to pray not only for our sons’ safety, but also for the safety of anyone driving that way.  Next, however, I did what any mother, with a light control issue, would do.  I went to my husband and asked him to go help herd the cows back before the boys came up the road.  My husband, as he usually does, just shook his head, did his best Scarlet O’Hara impression murmuring something about “tomorrow,” and went back to sleep.  I, on the other hand, could not let it rest.  I got up, dressed, got into our car, and drove the several miles to the interstate highway ramp, where I knew the boys would have to exit, and parked my car with my flashers on.  Can you imagine my sons’ disbelief, as they excited the highway, saw the car with the lights flashing, and recognized it was their mother’s car?  They hurried towards me as I was getting out of the car, asking, “What’s wrong, Mom?  Is everything ok?”

Try to picture their faces as I stood on the side of an interstate highway at midnight telling them to be careful on their way home because the cows were out.  I do believe that the boys wanted me certified as unstable that night.  For me, it was the least I could do.  The cows were out, danger loomed, and I wanted them equipped with all of the information they needed to make good decisions and to drive, carefully.

On October 17, 1989, an earthquake, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, hit San Francisco.  One of the areas hardest hit was the Bay Bridge, where an upper span collapsed.  As a bus neared the gaping hole in the concrete, spectators who had climbed out of their cars on the bridge watched in horror.  One man, however, ran onto the adjacent span of the bridge, waving his arms and, successfully, stopped the bus and avoided many more potential casualties.

There were several types of people on that bridge that day.  There were those who perished into the chasm.  There were those who, mercifully, came to a halt without driving over the precipice.  No one wanted other people to perish on that bridge that day.  Yet, only one man was willing to do anything about it.  Later reports revealed that motorists were even given incorrect directions, in the total confusion following the earthquake, by police that day, as they directed them toward the edge of the bridge, rather than to safety. 

Because of today’s atmosphere of political correctness and unbridled tolerance, we have become uncomfortable becoming involved in the lives of others, afraid of being viewed as meddling, judgmental, or intolerant.  Yet, if our sons had driven into an accident by hitting one of the cows, and I could have pointed out a different way to go or a better way to drive, I would have forever grieved about my indifference.  Those bus passengers in San Francisco were, at least for the moment, grateful that one man interfered with their route.  Yet, we often choose to distance ourselves from others whom we see heading straight for the chasm of an eternity apart from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  I know my sons thought I was crazy for waving them down.  I slept well that night.  I imagine the bus driver was irritated that some man stepped in front of the bus and stopped him in his tracks. 

In Galatians 4, we are encouraged to always speak the truth in love for the purpose of ministering grace to the listeners and to build up, strengthen, and protect others.  My prayer is that we would be faithful, through word and example, to be used of the Lord to obey Colossians 1:28, warning every man, about the emptiness of life without Christ, an eternity of destruction apart from Christ, and explaining the joy of life in Christ.

(06/30/10)