Eight Cow Wife

Some gifts you can see . . . and some you cannot.
In this story, listen for what gift was GIVEN and what gift was RECEIVED.

Johnny Lingo and the Eight Cow Wife
(From “Woman’s Day”, Nov.1965; “Readers Digest”, Feb.1988. Revised by Esther Carlson, 2010.)

Once upon a time . . . a long time ago . . . in a far away place, there was a reporter who traveled to a remote island in the South Pacific.

As this reporter traveled around the island, he interviewed people. Everyone he spoke to talked about one man — Johnny Lingo.

It seems Johnny Lingo had quite the reputation.

If you needed a place to stay, Johnny could put you up since he had built a 5-bedroom house (an unheard of luxury on the islands).  If you wanted fresh vegetables, his garden was the greenest.  If you wanted to fish, he could show you where the biting was best.  If pearls is what you sought, he knew how to bargain for the best price.

One Islander told him, “There is nothing you could want, that Johnny can’t help you get. He is the richest, smartest, best trader in all the islands. Johnny knows VALUES and how to get good deals. He’ll earn his commission four times over.”

His son playing nearby who heard what he said, started shrieking with laughter. “Did you tell him, Papa, that he should see Johnny’s wife?”

“What’s going on?” the reporter demanded.  “Everybody around here tells me to get in touch with Johnny Lingo and then breaks up laughing.  Is this some kind of trick, a wild-goose chase, the village idiot or what?  Let me in on the joke.”

The Islander then explained to the reporter how Johnny had come to the main island during Fall Festival time to find himself a wife. And find one he did — he paid EIGHT COWS for her!

Now the reporter knew enough about island customs to be thoroughly impressed. He knew that 2 or 3 cows would buy a fair to average wife, 4 or 5 a highly satisfactory one.

“Goodness,” he said to the Islander, “Eight cows! She must have a beauty that takes your breath away!”

The Islander conceded, “Well, she’s not ugly. But the kindest could only call Sarita plain. Nothing stood out about her. She was kind of ordinary.”

“She was little and skinny. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head down. Her cheeks were pale with no color in them. Her eyes never opened beyond a slit and her hair was a tangled mess. She was afraid to speak above a whisper. She never played or interacted with the other kids.”

“She was three months past marriage when Johnny came and no one had offered for her. Her father was worried that no one would want her. He was willing to accept only ONE COW for her.”

The reporter exclaimed, “But how did he get EIGHT COWS for her? Isn’t that an extraordinary number?”

“Never been paid before on the islands,” said the man.

“Everyone here has been open-mouthed ever since. We can’t figure out why Johnny — the sharpest trader in the islands — paid EIGHT COWS for a girl anyone here could have had for only one or two.”

“Some say he was blind with love. Others suspect trickery — something in the punch that muddled Johnny’s brain. Sarita’s father was convinced that Johnny had gone mad and decided to seal the deal, before he came to his senses.”

“Johnny took Sarita back to his house on the neighboring island. We haven’t seen him since.”

“EIGHT COWS,” the reporter thought to himself. “Unbelievable!”

He had to meet this Johnny Lingo. So the next day he set sail for the neighboring island.

When the reporter met Johnny, he seemed so earnest, so sober, so unlikely to go mad. He wondered even more what had made him behave with such recklessness on the main island.

So the reporter asked him, “I hear so much about you. . . and your wife. No one can figure out why you paid EIGHT COWS for your marriage settlement. I wanted to ask you, why?”

There was a long, awkward pause.

And then he saw her.

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. This lady was different. She was lovely both inside and out.

The fresh flowers that pinned back her lustrous black hair, accented the glow of her cheeks. She walked with dignity — her shoulders back and her head held high. Her eyes sparkled with pride. As she turned to leave, she moved with such grace and enchantment that she looked like a queen.

The reporter could barely utter a word, “She-she’s glorious. Who is she?”

Johnny responded, “That’s Sarita. My wife.”

The reporter stared at him blankly. Surely this was not the same person the islanders had talked about. He thought to himself,  “How could she be so different from the way THE OTHERS had described her?”

Johnny broke the silence.

“Do you ever think,” he asked reflectively, “what it must mean to a woman to know that her husband has met with her father to settle the lowest possible price for which she can be bought?  And then later, when all the women talk (as women do), they boast of what their husbands paid for them.  One says four cows, another maybe six.  How does she feel, the woman who was sold for one or two?  This could not happen to my Sarita.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I loved Sarita and no one else. I wanted her to be happy, of course. But I wanted so much more for her than that.”

“I wanted an EIGHT COW wife.”

“Many things change a woman. Things that happen inside, things that happen outside.  But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself.  Back home, Sarita believed she was worth nothing.  Now she knows she is worth more than any other woman on the islands.”

THE MESSAGE OF THE CROSS:

• Just like the story you heard, Jesus paid a GREAT PRICE for you.
•  He hoped that His great price would REVEAL to YOU your Immeasurable Value and Worth and Significance.
•  And that once you realized this TRUTH, something would CHANGE on the INSIDE OF YOU.
•  He purposefully gave you a NEW IDENTITY — one that is not based on what others think.
•  God wanted to give you SELF-CONFIDENCE to “DO” and “BE” all that He had hoped and dreamed for you.
•  He wanted you to BELIEVE (not just in your head, but in your heart) and therefore change the way you live. You would LIVE DIFFERENTLY!
•  The Bible says in Prov. 23:7, “As I think in my heart, SO–AM–I.”
•  Your WORDS and THOUGHTS have power. They have power to INFLUENCE and create CHANGE, not only in YOURSELF — but in OTHERS.
•  Remember this. . . You are not what others say about you. You are not what you say to yourself. You are what God says about you. He says you have value, significance and purpose.
•  How do you know this to be true?
• Because . . . He paid a lot more for you than EIGHT COWS!

FINAL THOUGHT:

• Just like Sarita, maybe you think there is nothing special about you — that nothing stands out. And you feel very “ordinary.”
•  Don’t let others define or tell you WHO YOU ARE. The most important thing is WHO GOD SAYS YOU ARE and what you BELIEVE about yourself in your heart.