An Evening Walk ~ by Sharon

A few evenings ago I took the dogs for a walk. It’s not my normal routine, but with the gym closed I desperately needed to get out and get some exercise.  I had to force myself to do it.  By then it had been a long week-even though it was only Tuesday-and I just wanted to fall on the couch, zone out to some classic TV and go to sleep.  At work meetings had been planned, then moved, then cancelled, then rescheduled online trying to duck and weave around Covid-19.  Outside of work it was the same boxing match:  trying to figure out how to avoid something that can’t be seen, or heard, and might already be everywhere.

Here’s what happened on the walk though:

– A pair of pileated woodpeckers made their way up the trunk of an oak tree.

– A couple of squirrels chased each other across the grass.

– The neighbor’s dog threw the same fit she always throws when someone walks by.

It’s still there; I just have to look for it a little more deliberately now.  The instant those two woodpeckers crossed my line of vision God reminded about the birds.  There they were in front of me: cared for.

You and I, He says are “much more valuable than they” (Matthew 6:26).

That has not changed.  If the worst happens, whatever that is, His care for us has not changed.

The choice I have to make is to trust that even when this gets harder, as it almost certainly will.  I have to make the choice to seek out the reminders, and to go for a walk.