I guess if you stretched the term “deer hunter” way beyond all common sense, you could say I’m a deer hunter.
I don’t hunt with guns or arrows, and you’ll never catch me sitting in a tree or crouching in the bushes with heaven-knows-what scurrying about me, but I do hunt deer with my eyes.
I love to spot one as I’m traipsing around on our farm. Unless, that is, they’re bellying up to my vegetable garden, munching on my flowers, or scampering across the road at night.
My husband thinks I’m nuts, but when I’m driving at night, I always expect a deranged deer to leap into my windshield, land on my lap, and pummel me to death with its hooves.
But when deer are out doing what deer are supposed to do—not eating things I’ve planted or playing chicken on the roads at night—I get really excited when I see one.
I grew up in a very wildlife-deprived neighborhood. Wait… does this qualify me for compensation through some government program? Okay, maybe not, but it does explain why seeing a deer in the wild is still a big deal for me and makes me feel like I’ve glimpsed Sasquatch or the Loch Ness monster.
I am on extra high alert now because our neighbor’s nephew recently told my husband that there is an epic buck that roams around on our little slice of Abbeville County. Because I do not want every Elmer Fudd in the state hunting on our land, I’m not going to tell you where that slice is, but this guy seems pretty sure the legendary deer is in our ’hood. He’s even caught Big Bambi on his top-secret, wildlife spy camera a few times.
Knowing this, I nearly needed to be defibrillated the other morning when I thought I was about to meet this bad boy buck.
It was early in the morning and I had driven our little utility vehicle out to the pasture to start my day with God, some coffee and a beautiful sunrise. As I sat there, I began to hear some serious rustling in the woods nearby, crunches that sounded an awful lot like big animal steps.
Closer and closer it came.
I wasn’t exactly dressed for a stealth operation, but I hoped that if I didn’t move, maybe the deer would somehow not notice me. I waited, barely breathing, as the rustling got louder and louder.
Finally, there it was, emerging from the woods!
Just a very noisy … little … squirrel.
That booger sure had me going. So much commotion for such a little critter.
Life is certainly full of big “stuff” that can fill us with fear—serious illnesses, intense pain, difficult relationships, sudden setbacks. Those things, and the fear of them, make a lot of noise in our hearts and minds.
How will I get through this? How is going to turn out? How can I fix this or avoid that?
Often, the thing we fear never happens, but sometimes it does.
Sometimes it emerges from the woods and we find ourselves staring at it, face to face.
When I meet folks who’ve survived horrific things, I always want to know how they did it, how they journeyed on with their faith and sanity intact.
I listen to their stories and there’s a common theme: God gives His followers supernatural grace to meet whatever comes. Not grace to worry about it, but grace to handle it.
If we meet the “stuff” of life with simple faith in a sovereign, mighty, loving God, the big and scary things don’t look quite so big or scary.
The giant deer turns out to be a noisy squirrel, when seen through eyes of faith.