Vinegar and Honey
Proverbs 25:25 "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country."
Much of the land around my grandparents' small farm has been bought, and new houses built in the nooks and crannies.
When I was young, I used to roam freely for miles in woodland settings similar to the one above. When I was very small, I remember helping our neighbors, shock oats on their small farm.
Shocking oats was not exactly the same as shocking corn, but the idea is the same. Putting the grain into a bundle, propping the
bundles into a circle and laying one bundle over the top.
We were told that when the ice age ended the glacier slid to a stop and pushed up the ridge we lived on. So our area had too much rough and tumble wild land and not enough farmland for big farms.
Our neighbors, who had been in our area many years, had to have health care, and sold their farm to pay the bills.
The new people who bought the land weren't 'bad' people, they just weren't...
Of course the old house wasn't good enough. They tore it and the buildings down and built a fancy new house in the middle of the field.
Proverbs 25:26 "A righteous man falling down before the wicked is as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring."
Yet, life goes on, and so did we. The wildness gave way to more fancy homes, we lost the timber where we picked raspberries, and the deep woods where the whippoorwill used to call in the evening.
Proverbs 25:27 "It is not good to eat much honey: so for men to search their own glory is not glory."
We have come a long way and some of it is good, but I'm not sure that everything we've traded it for is better.
One of my sons had a broken thigh bone when he was young. The best doctor in the country treated him. He recovered and has never had even a limp, but in times past that kind of recovery wouldn't have happened.
Young Fuzzy had a major surgery—twice—without which he would have lost two of his fingers. For these strides in our journey I'm thankful.
So, we accept what is, close our eyes to what we've lost, and carry on, trusting in Him who has the map.
