Outdoor Truths

What a wonderful time of year to celebrate Thanksgiving. Hunters ought to be the most thankful people on the earth. Every day we can share the outdoors with God's creation should make us a little surer about the existence of someone greater than us. I am thankful to be able to breathe the cool clean air on a fall morning. I am thankful to be able to walk across the fields and through the woods and climb into a tree stand. I am thankful for the warmth of the morning sun. I am thankful for the majestic mountains that reach through the valley fog. I am thankful for the opportunity to share a tree with a squirrel or watch a fox find its way back to its den. I am thankful for time alone, away from the manmade things of this world. I am thankful for the opportunity to learn patience and how to be still. I am thankful for living in the country, where you might just see a deer in your back yard. I am thankful for Steve and Aaron in Missouri, Ed and Jonathon in North Carolina, and the Brigalow's in Virginia. I am thankful or Cheryl, the Corium's, and the Fultz's in my own area. And all the other good people who have helped me enjoy hunting. There are so many others. I am thankful for both friends and strangers who have helped me drag a deer out of the woods. Both have treated me like family. I am thankful for my parents. They taught me to love God and man. I am thankful for my wife Teresa (who lets me hunt) and my three children, Bethany, Brittany, and Stuart. And my four grandchildren, Kiersten, Kaden, Brogan and Juda. Most of all, I thank God. He is the creator of this beautiful place we call earth. The two most powerful words in my life for the past 15 years, have been "Thank You." They have not only transformed me and what I do, but each time I have uttered them, they have placed me squarely in the will of God. The Apostle Paul said in a letter written to the church at Thessalonica, "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." It's amazing to think that perhaps more than any other time, America could have millions of people simultaneously in the will of God on Thanksgiving. I wonder as we give thanks together on that day, where God will turn our hearts. I imagine wherever that is, it will be where His heart is all the time. And I imagine it will be on others.

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