Joy in the Barren

With the beans and bacon simmering in the slow cooker for supper, I decide to go outside for a walk in the 30-degree weather.  Just as we have experienced the dark, cold winter weather too soon in the fall, I’ve allowed circumstances beyond my control to darken my spirit and make my heart cold. The winds had calmed down to about 6 miles per hour, so I head out, praying to find some joy.  “Perhaps,” I think, “I’ll find some joy in nature on this walk.”   Even the chickens know good can be found on cold, cloudy days.  Beauty that brings joy can be found in the harshest of times.

So Leah and I head out, seeking joy, seeking beauty that brings joy. After we walk about a mile, we pass the creek for the second time.  After a bit, I notice that Leah must have stayed down in the creek, for she is no longer following me.  I call her; I call her again.  Finally she comes out of the creek toward me.  I continue on, but look back after a bit to see her standing in the middle of the road, as if debating whether to continue toward me or turn around.  As I watch, she decides to turn around.  I realize something good must have been at the creek. 

I turn around to see what she had found.  I arrive at the creek, look over the side of the bridge, and see that Leah had found a deer carcass.  Some brush separated Leah from the deer.  She was trying to go under the brush to get to the deer; she soon realizes that she needs to jump over the brush.  She does and begins to chew on her treat.  She has found her joy.  I turn to go home, telling her that she needs to come home soon.

I get up the hill and down the road a bit, turn around to check for Leah and see her coming with something in her mouth.  As she gets closer, I see she has a leg of venison.  She passes me up and runs straight home, stops at our first drive, sits down, and enjoys her feast. 

What joy!

“Where was the joy for me?” I think.  Yes I shared some of Leah’s joy in her deer, but seeing any animal being chewed by another is not the greatest joy for me. 

The wheat, alfalfa, and evergreens look pretty with the snow cover, but several fields on my walk were simply brown and bare; the soybeans were harvested leaving the field dreary and barren—barren, yet open for renewal! 

The moisture can soak into the bare fields; those barren fields are waiting to accept new seed.  Bare, but open to new possibilities.  Isaiah 43:19 tells us, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” God promises a way in the wilderness; rivers in the desert.  God is doing a new thing in my life even as circumstances darken my spirit and torment my heart, leaving my life feeling barren.  

God is making a way for me to get through this.  I must continue to remind myself of the beauty of this truth. Can I find joy in that beauty?  When nothing else makes sense, God shows the way through the wilderness. I will continue to seek God’s presence and renewal and say with the Psalmist, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.”