The days are moving ahead at a steady pace. While 2020 has been unpredictable and unbelievable, one thing has been consistent and unchanging. It’s each day’s twenty-four-hour cycle. Nothing has slowed it down, sped it up, or altered its guaranteed coming and going. As a result, deer season is dragging me one day closer to its arrival. I’m in full preparation mode. Stands are being put up, cameras are being placed, and feeders set where allowed. I’m also getting ready to disc up a field for late summer planting. Since I live on the boarder of three states, I am constantly double-checking seasons, limits, and regulations. It’s just how it is around here. Except for an early Tennessee velvet-antler hunt, Kentucky is always first to welcome hunters to the woods. Normally they welcome us when it’s too hot to go. So, unless I know there’s a big one perusing the area, I wait until cooler weather is the rule. I’ve noticed how preparation brings new excitement and expectation. At the end of every year, it’s just the opposite. Toward the end of each season, high hopes are rare, and that means we get impatient and uncommitted. But beginning about now, things change. We’ve forgotten the pain of childbirth and are ready to have another baby. (At least that’s what I’m told the child bearers do) And it doesn’t take much to renew our passion. Just the other day, I moved a tree stand thirty yards and I felt like I had just increased my odds by a 100 percent. I don’t know if I’ll be able to pass on all those ten-pointers, just to get to that twelve!
I hope you are thankful that sometimes our memories are short. I hope you’re thankful pain may run deep, but most of the time it doesn’t run long. And I hope you also see that sometimes, the smallest tweak, can bring about a renewed excitement. We need this right now. Some of you have suffered some losses lately. Your business and perhaps your family have experienced some real pain from the world-wide pandemic. You may be covered and cornered by confusion. I understand. But know this. God works in real time, and his promises are as consistent and certain as my upcoming deer season. And here is one promise God gave Jeremiah to give to us. “Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.” So, tomorrow when you get up, don’t look at the past more than a few seconds. Its pain is not meant to keep you from the next blessing. It’s only there to remind you of what God brought you through to get it.
Gary Miller
gary@outdoortruths.org