His Mountain Song

My family and I are hiking along a mountain trail.  They are excited and happy, but I struggle with dark feelings of failure over my son's decision to live apart from God.  The sun shines, the trees seem to clap their hands and the meadow grasses bend to sing their song.  But I cling to depression.

We set up camp, then climb a ridge to discover what is on the other side.  the trail is backbreaking  We are tired and thirsty, but still we climb upwards and discover a lake of shining waters hidden in the folds of the tree clad mountains.

We drink deeply, catch frogs and admire dragon flies.  But it seems my Lord is trying to tell me something.  I cannot quite make out what it is. 

I leave my family and cross to the other side of the lake.  I walk along the lake's edge, where I meet a mother ewe and her lamb slaking their thirst in the cold glacial waters.  

Suddenly my  Shepherd is there.  His eyes shine with love.  He sees my bitter self-inflicted wounds, my sadness and hurt.  With gentle hands, He tenderly touches my pain and I begin to learn His beautiful mountain song.

--His Mountain Song, copyright ©1981 by Eva J. Gibson

Would you like to read more?  This is an excerpt from a manuscript written long ago.  I am considering re-writing it as an allegory to submit to a publisher.  What do you think?

Every House is Built...

I built my first farm beneath the spreading branches of a fir tree at the edge of the garden when I was about eight or nine. I used a hoe to scrape out a creek to wind amongst the ferns and gathered sticks to make a field for animals to graze in. I picked rose hips off the wild rose bushes for sheep, tiny burs from the burdock for hens, then added a cow I cut out from the Ward's catalog. My brother built a barn and a house out of scrap lumber. My farm was complete.

Or was it? I needed a family.  It wasn't until I carried the family I cut out from the catalog that my farm became a real farm. I loved that little family. Years later, the tree still stands, but the posts are gone. I have no idea what became of the house, or barn, or the precious family I carried back and forth in a shoe box.

My husband and I built a house together when our children were small. It grew board by board and so did the memories. Beth lost a doll inside the walls . . . years later she remembered she'd put it there for safe keeping. Her two-year-old brother poked nails down a knothole. My husband found them years later, a strange mountain of rusted nails alongside the foundation under the house.

Our children are grown now-all six of them. They've gone on, some live in houses built long before they were born, some to build houses of their own, others to share the home they grew up in with their parents. The happy boy who stuffed nails down the hole has a brand new house in heaven that his Father in heaven built for him.

Hebrews 3:4 says: ". . . every house is built by someone but He who built all things is God."

Looking at my family, I see God’s hand working there—He is still building.   Our Creator loves families, they're important to Him.  We can leave our burdens concerning our families in His tender care.  We can trust He has their best good in mind, and in this there is peace.