God's Simple Pleasures

First, I want to start by apologizing for not posting something in...yeah a long time. But life has been just a little hectic since school started. My Junior year is proving to be the hardest so far and I suppose I should have expected that, being told by friends that it was. Those of you who aren't taking Chemistry yet I just want to warn you to prepare for the hardest work you will ever know....until college. Yeah ok maybe I'm over reacting a little bit but really, it's hard! Ok I'll stop, this is not what I wanted to ramble on about in this post.

So I said my life has been hectic right? Ya it has...

Since I posted last I've started school (which is probably the main reason my life is busy at the moment.) but also my great grandma past away almost a month ago. And it hit us all as a shock, so...that's taken some getting used to. Also, living in my grandparents house while we've been looking for our own house, has been a challenge for me. Not that I don't love my grandparents, I do tremendously, but sleeping on the floor in my grandmas office for three months has been different. But, considering that I am planning to live in the mission field after college the rest of my life, I guess I should get used to sleeping on the floor and close quarters. 

And then something happened about three months ago after moving into my grandparents house. Up the street and across another street there is a farm. Yes, a farm in the city. The high school near us uses the farm as a agriculture learning center so it's almost always filled with animals and in the early morning you can hear the cows yodeling away as the sun peaks over the mountain. In the spring they buy kids, not the kind you are thinking of, I'm talking goat kids. And they use these kids as learning experiences for the students to take to fairs and then eventually they sell them for market. Which is totally wrong, but that's a whole other essay.

One day me and my family were going on a walk and decided to stop at the farm to see the animals. We walked to a pen in the back of the farm and there were a cute little herd of wobbly legged kids. They were amazingly friendly and from that day on we stopped by to feed them grass and leaves and things just to see their wobbly little ears flap and enjoy their humorous personalities. From the start, there was always one particular goat that out shone the others. He just had the type of personality that was almost human.You could almost tell what was going on in his brain when you looked in his cat like eyes.


After a while me and my brother named a few of the ones that had the funniest personalities: Freckles had chestnut freckles on his white ears, Prince just had a dark brown noble looking face, and well Nibbles, just nibbled on everything. Nibbles was the one that had, I guess you could say, captured my heart. He was the one with the human personality, and me and him just had a connection. You are probably thinking I'm insane now....a connection with a goat....ya ok so maybe I am. I'm serious though! Over time me and my brother started calling him our goat. That probably wasn't the smartest idea, but we couldn't help it.


Fair time came around and we didn't really know if we wanted to go see him there since after fair they would all be going to the slaughterhouse. But since he had brought so much joy into our lives we decided seeing him one last time would be worth it. At the fair we found him, he was laying in his pen on the floor and was too tired to walk over and see us. And then, somehow, I don't remember exactly how, but we found out that all of the goats had made the right weight for market except Nibbles. We were so excited to know that he wasn't going to market! My mom asked the girl that had been taking care of him what she planned to do with him. She said that she was going to try and find a home for him and that she might already have a place. My mom told her we might be interested and decided to give her our phone number just in case she found out that place wouldn't work out. We didn't hear anything for a while and I just assumed that they had found a place for him and he'd be leaving the farm soon.

Until one day when my mom pulled me into their room and asked what I'd think if we bought Nibbles.  It turns out that there wasn't another place for him to go and they needed to find a place quickly. I didn't know what to think! Here were my parents considering buying a goat when we had nowhere to put it because we didn't even have our own house yet! I was in shock and of course my answer would be yes but I figured I should pray and think about it before I gave a definite answer as to what I thought. Eventually I believed God was saying that we should buy him, everything just seemed to be falling into place and there wasn't anyone else who wanted him.

So after many days of trying to work things out between the farm and the girl that "owned" him (basically the hand didn't know what the foot was doing, ya it was just really complicated.) we went down to the farm and payed the lady the check for my goat. Now the trick was to figure out where to put him. But God provided that just in time, in the two weeks before we were supposed to get him off the farm we remembered a boy we had met at the fair with his goats. They breed this specific breed (Boer goats) and have a farm not far from here, about 15 minutes. It has all worked out beautifully, the added blessing is that when we go out to visit we are bombarded by about forty other goats all eager to greet you the second you enter the barn. And the people that live there are some of the nicest I've ever met! I pray that we can be a witness to them.

Although it seems odd and maybe a little crazy that we've bought a goat before a house I truly believe God sent this little hoofed angel to us. He has brought me some of the best moments that I've had in my life. God knew just what we needed. He brought me the simple pleasures of a furry, frisky, blocky legged goat just at the time I needed most. When I was starting to lose hope again of ever finding our country home. I can tell you right now there is nothing better than sticking your nose deep into a goats hide and sniffing.  Ya I'm serious, on a rainy day when you might be feeling a bit down, come over and sniff my goat. I promise you it will make you feel 100% better! No kidding! He's my miracle goat.

I guess what I'm trying to say is. Don't give up on God. Things might be tough right now. But there always has to be a valley before a mountain. And in the valleys the most beautiful flowers grow along the way. God has a plan. And he'll get you through. That's what this goat has shown me. He's almost like a rainbow, a promise that something better is around the corner and you're ALMOST THERE. He's saying, "Just hold on a little longer my child. Trust me."

"For I know the thoughts I have toward you saith the Lord. Thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:11-13