Mean While Back On The Ranch.

In my last posting, I have shared some of the wonderful family time and memory on our ranch along with some painful life lesson resulting from my foolishness. There was one incident that after all these years taught be a lesson about obedience and grace. This painful lesson again resulted from my foolishness and its consequence. It also gave me a glimpse into my father's love for his children and family.

One of the ponds that dad had dug to supply water for the ranch was quite deep but it was also wonderfully inviting for fishing. Dad had put up a barbwire fence to keep the animals and knuckle headed kids from going in there and hurt themselves. My brothers and I of course were the epiphany of knuckle heads. I volunteered to climb first over the fence. As I was near the top of this thing, I saw dad heading toward us. In my haste to escape, I lost my footing again. I slipped and fell. And as I fell toward the ground my right forearm was caught on one of the sharp pointing thing on the wire and it just sheared right into my flesh (imagine this in slow motion). The pain was indescribable. Once again, my dad came to rescue me (this theme would play and replay itself again and again over the course of his life). Recognizing that I was bleeding uncontrollably and in serious pain, dad did what he had to do as we were nowhere near any hospital or clinic. Dad resorted to drain gasoline from our jeep and poured that scorching liquid onto my arm in trying to halt the bleeding and possible infection. I screamed and screamed at him why was he hurting me. I truly felt it was a punishment for my disobedience.

The bleeding stopped. In the midst of my suffering and pain, I didn't noticed the tears in my dad's eyes. I didn't recognize the pain he had to endure. How many time in our lives when pain and suffering came to us, sometime as a consequence of our sin and the sin of others, we failed to recognize the undeniable truth that our heavenly father is so near to us.

Back Row: Thavisak and Thavisith (we wore hats as we had our head shaved to be pallbearers at our great aunt funeral. Front Row: KhingKham, Viratham, Phonethip, Monotham and Mom. This was at our main ranch where dad planted coconut trees, banana trees and other fruit trees. In the back ground was a pavilion overlooking the main pond.