Kevin and Rick
Meet Kevin and Rick.
It sounds like a couple of dads from the neighborhood or two guys from small group, but Kevin and Rick are our newly acquired feeder pigs. I can’t explain the names because I don’t understand the reason they were chosen, but I can tell you it was the result of much deliberation around the family dinner table. Nobody was 100 percent satisfied with the decision, but it is the closest to consensus as was possible. So Kevin and Rick it is!
This is an almost annual tradition for us. Once a year (typically in May, but we are behind this year), we get two piglets for the purpose of raising our own pork for the year. It’s a process that yields all manner of benefits—responsibility, connection to creation, know-how, and bacon! It is something our whole family enjoys, but not every portion of the process is enjoyable.
Perhaps the most common question we get asked is, “Why do you name them? Doesn’t that make it harder to process them?”
The answer, in a word, is, “Yes.” Yes, naming them and getting attached to them makes it more difficult to process them when the time comes. But it does another (more important) thing. It connects us (the caretakers) to them (the dependents) and helps ensure we provide the highest level care. It reminds us of the caretaking task God gave to Adam in Genesis 2. In fact, in Genesis 2:19-20, Adam is tasking with naming the animals under his care:
“Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.”
Naming the animals under our care helps us give them the highest quality life, and it reminds us that a place of power and authority should be primarily about service.
A second less-than-enjoyable task is setting boundaries for the new pigs. We endeavor to give them as much free space as possible (in our case, a large swath of wooden area), but there must of course be limits to that space. Pigs are extremely smart, and we have found the most effective containment method to be two strands of low-voltage electric fence wire. One or two touches of the wire is typically all it takes for a piglet to respect that boundary for life—even when it reaches a weight of 300 pounds! If only I were that teachable!
Have you set those boundaries in your life? Have you established reminders to help you avoid crossing into places that would bring about destruction? Do you have support around you to remind you of those limits? It is easy to think of these boundaries as restrictive, but in truth they are life-giving and life-preserving!
Kevin and Rick are sleeping peacefully not far from where I sit. They are at peace because their boundaries have been set, and they know it.
What about you? Have an honest conversation with your loving heavenly Father today. Are your boundaries set, or are they movable? Ask Him for wisdom to set those boundaries in a way that will bring deep peace.
The following article originally appeared in Thann’s “The Equipped” Weekly Newsletter. For more information on Thann’s weekly email, click here.