The Cow Lesson

This week I helped a friend at a dairy. This dairy milks twice a day and has about 250 cows. While milking on Friday night there were some... problems. Cows wouldn't go through the pathways correctly and they were having issues walking. One cow came through backwards and fell. She fell in such a way that she couldn't get up. This was very frustrating. It was hard seeing this cow struggle and it made us work much later than we had to. It would have been so much easier for this cow to follow the path correctly the first time, as she had done hundreds of times before. We finally had to get the tractor to pull her out of the barn and then tie hobbles to her legs. Hobbles control the space a cow can step.
 This experience put a very valuable Gospel lesson in perspective. Structure is there to help us in our lives. The pathways in the barn were there for the cows safety. They made it so the cow could be milked, which keeps it healthy, and so it could pass through without falling and injuring itself. When the cow didn't follow the rules it struggled, fell and got stuck. This is a lot like the Gospel. Some people feel that the Gospel has too many rules and that it keeps us from having fun. This isn't the case. Heavenly Father knows that our path is very dangerous yet He also knows that we must move along it in order to grow and progress. He has given us commandments to keep us safe. He also knows that sometimes we go off the path and when this happens sometimes we have to struggle. In the end we find that we cannot get up on our own, just as the cow couldn't get up once she fell, and we need the Lords help. I believe that the Lord often shows up with a tractor and chains to get us out of any mess we have gotten ourselves into. It doesn't matter if He has been working hard all day or if He is tired, He is always there to bail us out. Then He may hobble us to keep us from falling again. Even though hobbles restrict leg movement they help the cow because it keeps her legs from falling out from underneath her. Sometimes our hobbles can be our guilt from past mistakes or opportunities missed. We should know that our Heavenly Father only gives us hobbles to strengthen us and make us stronger. He knows what we need and is more than willing to give it to us and help us because He is invested in us and wants us to return to Him.
We are all like cows in some ways, We don't always follow the path and sometimes we can see our fences as constraints. However, if we submit to the will of the Lord and His plan for us we can make it back to Him safely and live happily forever. God is our farmer that has our best interests at heart, sometimes we just have to fall so we can get up with a new perspective.