The Miracle Cows

It’s very easy to cruise through life and not let God into the details. I suppose we sometimes wrongly think that God is only interested in the bigger more important stuff – but nope he loves getting involved and being here for us in everything – including how to relocate four rebellious naughty cows.

We were recently gifted four pet cows from the neighbouring farm. These weren’t ordinary cows - they had a bad reputation for doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Jumping over barb wire fences, running through electric fences, disappearing for days on end and best of all, surprising the odd motorist with an appearance on the main road -normally on a blind corner. The job seemed simple – we would open the adjoining gate push the cattle out into our property and then travel them 1kms though the middle of our farm passing through seven paddocks and nine gates. We laughed at the warnings we were given and chose to see it as more of a challenge. Plus, we love our neighbour and he loved his pet cows and we weren’t going to let him down. Merlin his favourite plus the three unnamed lady cows were in for a new adventure. What could go wrong?!

Because of the restrictions we had to have the cattle sprayed twice before we could move them. We had managed to get them into their tiny old yards ready for the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) but when they arrived at the yards – they were empty. Merlin and family had jumped out. Now we knew we were in for a real challenge. The poor man from the DPI was also unimpressed but what could we do?  Melinda and Amanda put a strategic plan in place to win over the cattle with food and love, we also erected an electric fence around the cattle yards giving them a grassy area. Then we delivered a large bail of our best hay and bought over plenty of yummy molasses.

What else would a cow want in life?

The next morning the girls went to check on the moos – no sign of them – vanished. Looks like they had gone right through the electric fence. Had we bitten off more than we can chew? The task before us seemed impossible. So on to plan B. We knew that the cattle yards were not that inviting, so the girls rebuilt the yards to give the four renegades a bit more room. Then we went in search of the four. Amanda and Melinda roamed the land and found three – no sign of the old cow – she’d gone – but where?  They searched for hours as did some of our neighbours no sign of the old girl who had now been named Haggis. To add to the stress levels, Merlin did not stop bellowing – calling out for his partner in crime. This was when I started to pray – what else could we do?! The DPI man was due back and we only had three cows and we still hadn’t managed to get them in the cattle yard.

Surprisingly Haggis returned as quick as she’d left. Merlin was happy and the family were reunited. Over the next couple of days, the girls worked on spending time bonding with our new additions and they settled well in their newly refurbished yards – but would they escape again?

The Plan in Action… ?

We had our first visit from the DPI and even he was impressed we had managed to contain them, but he had his doubts on whether they’d play ball relocating to another farm. The girls had planned the move down to the finest details – we closed gates, opened gates, moved cows and horses to different paddocks. Were we positive this was going to work – nope! That night Amanda had to take a herbal sleeping tablet and Melinda never slept worrying about what could happen. I woke up at 2am and started playing through all the things that could go wrong, but I reverted my thoughts to the only person who could give us a plan that would work and that was Jesus. I knew then what to do and I went back to sleep.

You’ve no idea as to the amount of blood, sweat and tears that went into this beautiful sight!

I met Melinda, Amanda, and Tegan at the neighbor’s yards– the day had come. No one looked overly confident. The DPI man came for the last and final spray and he again expressed his doubts. I explained to the girls we needed divine intervention and prayer was the only way forward. We closed our eyes and I prayed out loud – we handed everything over to Jesus knowing that we had no hope of doing this just with human wisdom. We asked for help and trusted God to step in.

The gates were opened, and Merlin, Haggis, Myrtle and Munchkin slowly followed Amanda and Tegan who were carrying loads of hay, whilst Melinda and I strolled behind at a distance. My heart was pounding as we passed through the first gate – this was too good to be true. It was almost like these cows had had a brain transplant – they were calm and mellow. As we went from paddock to paddock and closed gates behind us - there were a couple of times when I swear, I saw a yellow fluorescent light in the shape of a tunnel – it was like we were traveling right through the middle of it – were these angels?   40 minutes later we had the four in our cattle yards.

Did that just happen??

As we closed the gate Melinda collapsed to the ground, Amanda leapt up and down and Tegan looked rather bewildered. Did that just happen? What else could you do – but do a high five cow dance and get on your knees and thank God.

For any cow farmer reading this they may think we were exaggerating our concerns – but we had seen what these cows could do. They had no respect for fencing, gates, creek crossing, or humans and they could have easily destroyed all the fencing on our cattle/horse farm and injured some of our animals.

Today Merlin, Haggis, Myrtle and Munchkin are happy, relaxed and love their new home but most of all they love being with humans – yes sometimes the grass is greener on the other side of the fence but only when we hand it all over to Jesus. This whole episode reminded me how important it is to let Jesus into every part of your life. He wants to connect, and he wants to help us, but we do need to ask. Praying together with the girls triggered a reaction from God – we believed and trusted He would come through and He did. I believe that as we prayed, he released angels from heaven to protect us and the cows. 

“All things are possible with Jesus.”
- even miracle cows!