Wednesday

The Cows in the City! - A Dose of Encouragement


I know this sounded crazy to my husband who grew up on a dairy farm and who had often taken me out to the farm and then loved taking the children out to the farm when they came along.

But yes I was saying to him

I want to go and see the Cows in the city.


The city I was referring to was our hometown of Londonderry, in Northern Ireland, which is almost a 2 hour drive from the town of Banbridge, where we now live.






You see when we lived in Belgium I had just missed the cows in Brussels because they had come there shortly before us.  There was an odd cow here and there still in Brussels but I missed out on seeing all the cows that had been there.

Now you probably think I'm crazy because don't all cows look the same?

Well usually any one field of cows you might come across would have all the same breed of cow anyway.

But of course the cows I had wanted to go and see were not real live cows.

These cows were referred to as the painted cows.

During recent years different cities or countries have taken on this idea of having full size models of cows made and then painted by businesses, schools, organisations etc. as a form of advertising.

In Belgium apparently there had been many, many cows all over Brussels and perhaps in some other places too.

A few years ago Northern Ireland had the cows in a few places and one of the major places was in Londonderry.

Again there were cows painted by school children, businesses, charities and other organizations.

But there was one cow in particular that I really wanted to see in Londonderry.

The red one.

The one to commemorate Amelia Earhart (see info. on Amelia here)

Amelia was the first woman to fly the Atlantic and she landed in a field on the outskirts of Londonderry.  She is one of the claims to fame of my hometown and a small tourist attraction has been set up for any visitors who might be interested in learning more about this famous woman and her airplane and the special flight in which she succeeded in making history and showing that women could do some of the things that only seemed to be considered as things that men would do.


Google even celebrated Amelia Earhart's 115th Birthday with one of their Doodles.

Image from Google.com July 24, 2012


So I was thankful it did work out that within the time frame of the Cows being in Londonderry we were able to make a trip there to stay with my sister and her husband and I did have the opportunity to go to see the cows.

And we found the one in commemoration of Amelia,


the red one.






I thought this cow was very cleverly created because it was not just painted to depict Amelia as a famous and respected aviator but had also been shaped in a different way to the other cows.

To me this cow really stood out among the others.
Not just because of the expanse of red and because of the unique shape but also because of the simplicity in which the creator of it had portrayed the airplane and the woman who flew it.


It made me think of two things.

The cleverness of the creator and the respect to the person and their accomplishment.



We have the most clever creator of all.

We have the creator who made us so that every single little part of us works together to form a living being with an intellect and feelings.

How great is that?



We have the greatest creator of all.

We have the creator who respects us and all that we accomplish and has given us the ability to learn and create other things.

How wonderful to be part of such an intricate and planned creation.


How wonderful to be part of such an intricate and planned creation.



We have the best creator of all.



We have the original creator of all things.







I am thankful that God made us each unique and with abilities to do great things in all situations in life.

I am thankful that He respects us and cares about us so much we were not just a "toy" for Him.

I am thankful that we were created to have life and to love and to be loved by God.


We were created to have life and to love and to be loved by God.




I may have had my picture taken beside this clever cow creation but I (no matter how weak, sinful or small I am) am a more wonderful creation than this man-made one.


And so are you.