Holy cow

Gotta share this. It's funny how things smack you between the eyes sometimes. Especially since this message has been coming to me for the last few days in a variety of ways.

"This just means God has something better in store for you," a lady told me just today, after asking what I'm going to do after our last paper comes out next week.

I needed to hear it. I had a meltdown yesterday. Some days you just don't want to put on your big girl panties. You just don't want to deal with it. You want someone to come make all the bad stuff go away. I think that's okay once in a while, as long as it doesn't go on for too long.

So anyway, tonight as I was eating dinner, I finished reading The Walk, by Richard Paul Evans. It's a true story. I thought I had problems. This man built a successful advertising company, married his best friend, drove a Lexus and lived in a $2 million home. Then his wife became paralyzed in a horse accident, while she recovered his partner stole his company, his car was repossessed, his wife then died from complications, and his home was repossessed. He decided to walk from Seattle to Key West, and this book is about his journey. Read it.

But he shared this story, and it just smacked me between the eyes. So I thought I'd share it with you. I'll try to abbreviate it. It's a Brazilian folk tale and it's kind of long.

A Master of Wisdom was walking through the countryside with his apprentice when they came to a hovel on a meager piece of farmland.
"Go see if they will share their food," the Master told his apprentice, though they had plenty of food.
The apprentice did as he was told. The farmer, his wife and and their seven children came to the door, their clothes tattered and dirty.
"My Master and I are sojourners and want for food. I've come to see if you have any to share," he said.
The farmer replied, "We have little, but what we have we will share." He gave the apprentice a small piece of cheese and a crust of bread.
The apprentice reluctantly took their offering. He didn't want to take from what little they had.
"Life is difficult, but we get by," the farmer said. "And in spite of our poverty, we do have one great blessing. We have a little cow. She provides us milk and cheese, which we eat  or sell in the marketplace. It is not much but she provides enough for us to live on."
The apprentice took the food back to the Master and told him about their situation.
The Master said, "I am pleased to hear of their generosity, but I am greatly sorrowed by their circumstance. Before we leave this place, I have one more task for you.
Return to the hovel and bring back their cow."
The apprentice did as he was told. When he returned, the Master instructed him, "See yonder cliffs? Take the cow to the highest crest and push her over."
The apprentice was stunned. "But Master..."
"Do as I say."
The apprentice sorrowfully obeyed, and he and the Master went on their way.

The apprentice grew in mercy and wisdom, but always felt a pang of guilt at the thought of the poor farmer's family. One day he decided to apologize for what he had done. When he arrived, he found the hovel gone and a large, fenced villa in its place.
"Oh no," he cried. "The poor family who was here was driven out by my evil deed." Determined to find out what happened to the family, he pounded on the door.
He was greeted by a servant.
"I would like to speak to the master of the house," he said.
A smiling, well-dressed man appeared.
"Pardon me, sir, but could you please tell me what has become of the family who lived here?"
"My family has been on this land for three generations," the wealthy man replied.
The apprentice looked athim quizzically. "Many years ago I walked through this valley, where I met a farmer and his seven children. But they were very poor and lived in a small hovel."
"That was my family," the wealthy man said. "God works in mysterious ways. We had this little cow who provided us with the slimmest of necessities, enough to survive but little more. We suffered but expected no more from life.
Then, one day, our little cow wandered off and fell over a cliff. We knew that we would be ruined without her, so we did everything we could to survive. Only then did we discover that we had greater power and abilities than we possibly imagined and never would have found as long as we relied on that cow. What a great blessing from Heaven to have lost our little cow."

Maybe newspapers are my cow.