11/15/2025
Worth the read
Some days in the barn, things happen that make you stop and wonder if you’ve officially lost your mind — or if you just witnessed a miracle.
Case in point: I was tube-feeding a calf her electrolytes. Normal routine for a calf that is dehydrated but won't drink the electrolytes on her own. Everything was fine… until it wasn’t. One second she was handling it like a pro, the next she collapsed. Went limp. Eyes rolled back. Tail out — the posture no farmer ever wants to see, because that’s the one they take when they die.
She wasn’t breathing. Her heartbeat was faint.
So, I did what any reasonable, totally normal human being would do when faced with a dying calf — I performed CPR. On. A. Calf.
Mouth to nostril, trying to get air in. Pressing on her chest, trying to mimic a heartbeat. Somewhere between science, adrenaline, and pure not-on-my-watch determination. And while my hands worked, I was silently praying — pleading, really — that God would breathe life back into her lungs.
Several seconds in, I saw it — a blink when I touched my finger to the corner of her eye. That’s called a menace response — it means her brain saw/felt the motion and told her eyelid to close. In other words, her nervous system was booting back up. Her body was saying, “Hang on, we’re coming back online.”
A few seconds later, her heart started beating strong again. Then she took her first real breath.
And three minutes later?
She was standing up. Looking around like, “What just happened and why do you look so traumatized?”. Twelve hours later, she was dramatically demanding breakfast, which she was sure she earned after that whole ordeal.
I still don’t know exactly what caused it — but I have an educated guess to run passed the vet. And no, I didn't mess up and go down the trachea instead of the esophagus. The actual tube-feeding was done correctly. And yet that all happened.
That’s the thing about this job — about life, really. You don’t always get the outcome you want. You can follow every protocol, pray over every pen, and still lose one. But you never give up. Not until the calf does and somehow, she was not ready to quit.
Because when you know them — truly know them — you can tell when they’re still fighting and when they’re asking you to let go. Being a steward of God’s creation means knowing the difference and honoring it. You fight like everything depends on you — until the moment it doesn’t. And when that moment comes, you love them enough to let them go in peace.
Never giving up doesn’t mean you’re naive. It means you’re faithful. It means you keep showing up, even when it hurts. You keep trying, even when the odds don’t look good. You keep praying, even when the only answer you hear is silence.
Because hope isn’t loud — it’s steady. It’s CPR on a calf. It’s a quiet prayer whispered in the straw. It’s the moment when science and grace shake hands and say, “Let’s do this together.”
I’ve seen enough loss to know I don’t win every battle. But every once in a while, God lets me see a glimpse of His mercy up close — a heartbeat returning, a breath restarting, and a little life that wasn’t ready to quit. Miracles don’t always look polished; sometimes they’re muddy, messy, and covered in straw.
And maybe that’s exactly where God likes to show up — not just in quiet chapels or perfect moments, but in barns, on ordinary days, when a calf forgets how to breathe and a farmer whispers a prayer she’s not sure will be heard. After all, the first time He gave us the true gift of what mercy looked like, it was in a barn too — in a manger, surrounded by straw and livestock.
And somehow, He’s still showing up there.
