We had taken lots of hikes together and camped out often, but when my husband asked me to go backpacking for a week, I was hesitant. Finally, I agreed. We drove up in the high Sierras to meet with the group he usually backpacked with. As I was harnessed up with the backpack frame and loaded up with what I would need to camp, including food, I knew I had made a serious mistake. In the thin air it was harder to breath, even without climbing with a 40-plus-pound pack on my back. But off we went. After several miles of climbing I realized how important my feet were. Those feet in my new hiking boots and socks were my only means of transportation. You don’t think much about feet until you know they’re your only hope of rescue. I have not taken my feet for granted since.

Do you find it easy to say God’s will be done and really mean it? During the last year and a half, I’ve had serious cause to think about this question. We know God’s will for our lives or for our loved ones’ lives is always the best. God’s view is in the present moment always, seeing the past, the present and the future all at once. He knows what is best for us. Yet when my son’s or my daughter’s life or my grandchild’s or another loved one’s life is on the line, I hesitate. That’s when I want his will to be my will, not the other way around. It’s a real struggle for me—a Jacob wrestling with the angel/Lord kind of struggle or a David fasting and praying for his ill child. Why should I fear God’s will when I know he will make everything turn out for the good—for all concerned? Because it’s scary, like stepping out of the boat and walking on the water to Jesus. It takes a kind of faith I can’t come up with. It takes the gift of our Savior’s faith, through the Holy Spirit. Help me, Lord!

Missing the ocean this morning!

Hurried to get my camera, but too late. A couple of pileated woodpeckers are coming to my birdbath every day. They’re the largest of the Texas woodpeckers, black with a red crest on their heads and white streaks across their faces, so they’re hard to miss. Except when you want to take their photo! I love watching them. But not everyone cares for woodpeckers. One of my sons-in-law is an example. He and my daughter have a house with cedar siding so woodpeckers live up to their name and can create large holes in the cedar. He’s dashed out to run them off so often even the grandkids recognize their call and shout “woodpecker” when they hear them. What marvelous creatures God has created! It’s obvious he loves variety, whether in beetles, birds or beasts. All his designs are originals too, and that includes you and me.

Every so often I like to ask how everyone’s doing. We’ve had record-breaking heat, massive hurricanes, racial unrest and nastiest of all, a deadly worldwide virus. After people you know and love start being affected, even the jokes going around about 2020 seem less funny somehow. Some wonder if God is trying to get our attention. Maybe he has had enough of us and our problems. If we were being graded as a nation or as a world, I’m sure we would come up short. Some feel estranged from God, as if he’s turned his back on them personally. But we have no need to worry, we can be assured God will never turn his back on us, not as an individual or as a world. How can I know that? Because along with carrying our sinful burdens to the cross with him, Jesus suffered that horror for us as well. He suffered the painful agonies of feeling God had turned his back on him so we don’t have to.

Several years ago I sold the last horse I will probably ever own or will ever ride. It pains me to say that, but I have to be realistic. Letting go of anything you love is hard. All of us in this pandemic are suffering losses of one kind or another. We wish we could be with our families and friends more. We miss going to church, face-to-face church, not just virtual. Although I thank God we have the technological options that allow us to worship online. It’s been half a year now and you probably know someone who has had or is suffering from COVID-19. I know I do—close family members as well as others. Are there any positives? Maybe what we have materially doesn’t mean as much as before. Perhaps we’ve had time to reevaluate our busy schedules and let something go. Or could it be we’re realizing, no matter who we are or where we live or what our race or religion, we’re all in this together. Let’s look for the positives.

I don’t have bees in my bonnet, I have wasps in my attic! Every so often I noticed a wasp in the house and wondered how it got in. The little intruders are red wasps so they aren’t aggressive, but a bug is a bug. When I saw some fly from the half-moon window in my living room, I had new grout put around the window. They still showed up. Then a couple more were up on a ceiling vent in the master bathroom. This happened several times, so I checked outside my house. Aha! Wasps were coming and going from the roof outside the bathroom. They were coming in through a hole under a shingle. As much as I hate pesticides, I had to call an exterminator to get rid of the nest and then another guy to seal up the hole in the roof. Though wasps may be just little bugs, getting rid of them can sure be a headache–and expensive!

I’m losing another neighbor. She feels she needs to move closer to her children. She mentioned she is suffering dementia. I hadn’t noticed anything different about her, outside of getting older and slower, but she said she sometimes can’t remember people’s names at church. I didn’t say anything, but I doubt that’s a serious sign of dementia. At least I hope not! Perhaps she didn’t want to share other symptoms, too personal. When we first moved to north Texas, she and her husband already lived here so we’ve been neighbors for some years. We both lost our husbands to cancer as well. It’s not as if I think she’s making the wrong decision, she’s right to make the difficult choices before someone else has to. It’s just that good neighbors are a treasure. I’m going to miss her.

While reading through the Gospels, this time in the Message paraphrase, the disciples’ lack of discernment stands out to me again. I understand some of their confusion at what Jesus says, but when he tells them plainly, over and over, that he will suffer and die at the hands of the religious hierarchy and the Romans, they don’t get it. Is it because they don’t want to believe it? They have their own grandiose ideas about how the kingdom will come about and imagine their lofty positions in it. Their plans don’t include a dead Jesus hanging on a cross. It made me wonder about myself. Is God trying to tell me something, over and over, and I still don’t get it? Am I ignoring or confused or don’t want to believe what he’s saying? My prayer, Lord, give me a spirit of discernment!

Obsessions can be popular entertainment for us. You know what I mean, the old Monk series on TV where the character is so afraid of deadly germs and has regular routines that must be followed exactly. The movies Rainman and As Good as It Gets showed other examples. We kid around about some women’s obsessions with shoes or for men, even more tools. (Stereotypes, I know. Not all women or all men fit those descriptions.) Well, you won’t believe who else has an obsession problem. It’s God! God is obsessed with us! I heard this in a sermon one time. From the time he created us, God just can’t leave us alone, no matter what we do to try to ignore him. The closest I can imagine obsession was over my children, but even then, though my love and concern for them never ceases, I had to let them go their own way. God never lets us go. We may run but we can’t hide. He won’t give up on us—not ever.