The November temperature was dropping below freezing, with the sun now below the horizon and full dark fast approaching. And my ten year old son Jeremy and I had lost the blood trail.
We’d been following the spoor for the last half hour or so, but now it was too dark to see any more blood drops on the forest floor.
It was my first and only year bow hunting on our land in Michigan, because the deer I had hit with my arrow hadn’t dropped as expected, but had bolted through the trees and we couldn’t find him anywhere. I used the venison every winter to feed my family, but bow hunting was clearly not working for me. My shotgun was much more effective. My purpose in hunting wasn’t to injure and maim, but to kill instantly with minimal, if any, suffering.
We had about 25 acres of woods at the back of our property, with the front 30 acres or so tillable land. This past year it had been alfalfa, and the year before the field was full of row upon row of corn.
I’m not all that good navigating in the woods even though I love being in it. I can get turned around too easily, so after the buck ran off through the trees with my arrow still in him, I made my way back to the house and asked Jeremy if he’d like to help me track the deer I’d shot.
“Sure, mom, I’ll help you.” He donned his heavy coat, hat, scarf, gloves, and waterproof boots, then followed me out the door, up the two-track lane, and into the woods as the sun sank even lower in the sky and the colors, almost like blood, streaked across the horizon.
It was a noisy walk, because there wasn’t any snow on the ground yet, just dead and very crackly leaves alerting every critter around of our presence even though we did our best to be quiet.
When it was finally too dark to see, and time to head home to try again tomorrow, I looked up to the sky to get my bearings. I did a complete circle searching for a familiar tree line, and then my old friend fear gripped me and my heart began beating too hard in my chest. Panic was right there, and as I willed myself to calm down, I said to my son with a quaver in my voice, “I’m a little turned around, do you know exactly where we are?”
“Of course I do, mom!” my confident 10 year old said with a smile in his little-boy voice. “Here, take my hand and follow me, I’ll lead us home.”
So I did, and soon we were out of the woods, standing in the field, looking at the welcoming lights of home just down the lane.
I’ve had to overcome a lot of things over the years that used to terrify me. I’ll bet you have, too. One of my biggies, though, if you permit me to admit it, is allowing myself to be vulnerable to the hurts of others. It’s easier for me to give money, give things, and pray for someone, than to drive to their house, or call them on the phone, sit down face to face, eye to eye, voice to voice, and gaze on their private wounds and trace their scars.
Because, if you’re like me, you feel inadequate and uncomfortable in situations like that. There’s just too much emotion going on. I don’t know what to say or how to fix them. People and their problems are a messy business and it drains me dry emotionally. I absorb too much and feel too much and it scares me because then I’m not in control anymore.
When I start thinking thoughts like that, though, I remember this saying: God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called. And also what God said to the Apostle Paul – ‘my strength is made perfect in weakness.’
Our meager emotional resources are more than enough for God to use. Just as he fed five thousand hungry people with only five loaves of bread and two small fish, he can use you and me, especially when we feel inadequate.
Jeremy had no idea how much his small 10 year old child voice and mittened hand calmed his momma’s fears. He didn’t know a lot of things – he was just a little boy. But he knew how to get us back home.
People who are hurting are just looking for someone to show them the way home. The way out of their pain and back to the comforting lights just down the lane.
