Experience

Well, if I wasn't really a farm girl before, I surely am now!  We did something on the funny farm this week that I certainly never thought of before - we castrated pigs!  Before you worry about the little piggies, let me assure you that they are just fine.  They did squeal like stuck pigs, but I am pretty sure that they just didn't like being held down!  As soon as we let them go, they ran around as happy as before.

I use the "we" term pretty liberally when talking about farm work.  I do help with most things, but when it comes to stuff like this, I am just the videographer and gate holder.  I will spare you the video of this process though.  Jerry researched and learned all about the technique for "cutting pigs".  He felt very confident that he could do the job, but God blessed him with a gift that day.  Our neighbor comes from a pig farm and her son was visiting on the very day we planned to do the cutting.  He showed up just in time to help!

Jerry was so pleased to have the help of someone with experience.  I'm sure he would have done just fine, but it definitely would have taken us a lot longer to do what they were able to accomplish in just a few minutes.  It was also comforting to have someone who had done this thing before and could say, "That went well!"

When our neighbor's son offered his experience, we could have refused his help.  We could have said, "No, we want to do it ourselves."  We could have been stubborn and said, "We don't need your help."  We could have been proud, and said, "We know what we are doing."  We could have said, "We don't want to bother you with our messy job."  We could have turned away his gracious offer, but why?  God gives us experience so that we can help each other - a blessing to the one helping and a blessing to the one being helped!

Whenever we find ourselves in a new or uncomfortable situation, we should look for people who have been there.  We should be grateful for their experience and accept their help.  As we learn from them, we are building relationships and developing our own experience so that we can in turn help others!