Life in unexpected places

       Here's what our backyard looks like (please excuse the brown grass and weeds--if God made it grow, we like it)--

       Now there's a reason that Mr. B is looking particularly attentive, despite that fact that it's 99 degrees in the shade.  We apparently have some visitors who have made their happy home in our very wild, au natural yard (this time please excuse the crummy picture.  You are clearly not dealing with Ansel Adams here...and besides, this was hurriedly snapped through the kitchen window as they were about to run back into the woods)--

       Yes, not one but two little fawns!  Their mama must have spied us through the kitchen window, because she had just leapt back into the woods...followed pretty nearly simultaneously by her twins.  We've seen several other large deer back there as well...but I'm guessing the daddy is relaxing back in the woods with a remote in his hoof...or maybe a five iron.  After all, Father's Day is coming up.
       But can I just say, "Wow!  Who would have thought?!"
       Believe me, we do not have cavernous woods in our backyard.  It's dense and a pretty decent size, but not huge, so we're not talking about a State Park housing a family of deer.  This is, after all, the middle of Raleigh...the second biggest city in North Carolina, thank you very much (a population way back in 2013 of nearly 432,000).
      Yet in the middle of a busy city, a family of deer with twins is living and thriving in a regular old backyard...and we would never have known it except for an occasional sighting.  That's amazing.              Isn't it something?  Remarkable and beautiful life is happening all around us, even when we're unable--or unwilling--to see it.
       It all reminded me once again of the great truth that God is always, always, always working and moving in our world--and in my little corner of the world--in a billion different ways that I cannot see, do not know, and cannot even imagine.  Those hard, dark places that look like impossible dead-ends to me?--not to Him.  Not at all.  He's just turning that dead-end into an unexpected turn that reveals a spacious place of unexpected rest and blessing.
      Only we can't see it from here...cause that's how God often works.  Quietly.  Hidden.  Surprising.  Using the mundane and ordinary to camouflage the supernatural.  Relentlessly working and moving all the pieces into place in remarkable, beautiful, and sometimes utterly shocking, miraculous ways.
       A backyard housing magnificent creatures who gracefully leap and bound always reminds me that "God, the Lord, is my strength; He makes my feet like the deer's; He makes me tread on my high places." (Hab.3:19)  And "For who is God, but the Lord?  And who is a rock, except our God?--the God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless.  He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights." (Ps.18:31-33)
       Amen!  There is no Rock like our God...and He is working and moving and guiding and helping and leading and superintending you and your loved ones and this big, old, crazy world in innumerable and amazing ways we cannot see and do not imagine.
       Just remember (as I remind my amnesiac self): even when you cannot see it, God is here--right here, right now--with you, every moment of every day, continually working ALL things for your greater good and His greater glory.  Even in the trenches.  Even in the darkness.  Even in the hardest, most mystifying places.
        "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the Lord I love," says the great old hymn.  Yes, that's me.  Prone to wander...and all too easily, prone to forget.  But when I faithlessly forget, He gently reminds me.  Sometimes with a promise from His Word...or a hug from a friend...or a piece of wisdom from my husband or child or sister...or perhaps, sometimes,  even with a glimpse of some deer and their babies.  When you can't see Him with your eyes, see Him with your faith.
       Seeing isn't believing...but believing leads to seeing.
       Thank You, Lord.  To God be the glory.