I know it seems almost cliché, but back when I was young, I wanted to be a veterinarian. I guess I just thought it would allow me to work with livestock and become rich. I don’t know why I assumed vets were rich. I had known several, and none of them were living in mansions. But really, I just thought an intelligent kid like myself who did well in school and liked critters would make a good vet. My sophomore year, I decided to test my theory. My hypothesis was that I would make a great veterinarian. I’d looked into the career and determined that I had everything it took, with maybe an exception or two (like aptitude in math and chemistry). I designed my experiment by calling the state veterinarian, Andrew Clark, and asking him if I could go job shadow with him. He thought it sounded like a good idea, and he just happened to be going on a trip around Eastern Oregon to bleed cattle for brucellosis. I was invited. Andrew picked me up, and we started heading for the hills out of Pendleton. I realized immediately that his mind was asking “why?” or “how?” nearly all the time. He looked at the Blue Mountains off in the distance and asked me, “Marty, why do you think those mountains actually appear to be blue?” My answer was a pretty weak-hearted effort. “Because we’re a ways off, and they just look that way?” I asked/answered. He stroked his beard. After a while, he said, “Hmm. I wonder if it’s because indigo is toward the end of the spectrum, and the further we are away, the fewer colors we are able to see in objects that are not close.” I had forgotten our earlier exchange, and I was gazing out the window dreaming about bucking horses. I nodded in agreement, expressed my concurrence and thought maybe I’d better focus a little. Throughout the weekend, Andrew and I had a lot of conversations. We bled a lot of cattle, which I thought was great. I was the record keeper most of the time (and it was all pre-computer). We’d collect the blood in little vials that Andrew would take back and test for Bangs. He was on a mission, and as long as I got to run the headgate or poke a tail once in a while, I was tickled. Our travels were filled with science and discussion about brucellosis and just about everything else veterinary. We went to some dairies, some nice ranches, an embryo transfer facility, and a really cool little cow outfit out of Vale. I liked that place. The people there were punchy, and they didn’t wear rubber boots or ball caps. We needed to bleed their cows, and they invited me to go out and gather with them after lunch. That was one really nice thing. Everyone fed us. Anyhow, I was glad for the invite. I got on a nice little hackamore horse and rode out into a big pasture and helped bring in the herd. I hated to get off my horse, but it was time to write down tag numbers and descriptions again. Still, I enjoyed the heck out of it. All in all, Andrew was awesome. He showed me and told me all about being a great veterinarian. He made me aware of all of the science, which I really thought was interesting. He showed me all of the nuts and bolts of his job, and it was amazing. But as we were heading down the hill into Pendleton for our homeward bound approach, I realized that the best part of the whole trip was sorting cows, gathering cows, and running the squeeze chute. It was all the cowboy stuff, not the vet stuff. I got back home, realizing that Andrew had shown me that I wasn’t cut out to be a vet. I liked the Charlie Russell end of the life, not the scientist, record-keeping end of the life. My decision had been made after a weekend of bleeding cows with a state veterinarian—a weekend I truly enjoyed. Sometimes, what we think we want isn’t really what we want at all. We think we’re shaped for one thing, and God has built us completely different. We think we’d love to teach, and it turns out that we’re just not that good at it. We think we’d like to sell feed, and we realize we hate selling stuff. We think we’d love to work in a feedlot, and then we realize that it stinks. The thing is, a lot of the time, we can’t know unless we try it. God has shaped each and every one of us for a certain task in life. Sometimes, we’re shaped for more than one. But too many times, we sit around waiting for God to shout out in a voice as loud as thunder, “Marty, you are not going to like being a veterinarian! Don’t waste your time.” It turns out that only once I dipped my toe in the pond did I decide the water was too cold for me. The main thing for us to do, though, is to seek God in everything. He’ll show us the way, and sometimes it comes through trial and error. But he’s got to be first. Like Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.” He’ll take care of our every need, if we just seek him first.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 05:05:04 +0000
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