Making Ham Out of Hog

I was in Southwestern Oklahoma this past week and saw something I have only heard people talk about. I saw a wild hog. Yes, and it was in the daylight. It was big. It had tusks. It seemed mean. It was easing through a cotton field.

It looked like the hog of the prarie. It was alone and I felt sorry for it for a while. A hog all alone on the prarie. Perhaps it deserved to be alone. Perhaps it was just being a hog. It had a face only a mother could love and perhaps that is why it is alone. However, I have never seen a pretty pig even the domesticated kind. I know because my daughter and I used to raise them for FFA in Davis and Tuttle, Oklahoma.

Ranchers here hate these guys because they will kill small calves. They also root up good crops and destroy a good lawn. To them the only good wild hog is a dead one.

On this valentines day, I am glad not to be alone although at times I act like a hog. I am selfish most of the time and think I can do things by myself that should take help from others. I am a consumer. I am a scavenger. I am a nusance. I am a loner.

My counterpart has been my perfect mate. She is happy, optimistic, realistic, scientific and most of the time patient with the likes of me. She is not materialistic. She is a great mother. She is a great role model. She is my partner. She is my counselor. She is my best friend. I would never think of doing anything that would disappoint her. She is part of the reason I live. She helps me make it through the tough days and is the one I look forward to seeing every day. When I get depressed I want to be with her. When I choose to depress with no where else to go I just go to the hospital with a book and know she is near.

I trust her prayer life and know that much that has happened in ministry and through our children is because of her prayers. She never gets depressed or at least I never know it. She does not hold grudges. She has a forgetter that works very well. She is also a ham at times. And that is different than a hog.

I am just glad she likes a hog like me. She must be a little blind as well. She can make a ham out of a hog.

She is the one in red.