The Great Outdoors

I woke during the night… rain pitter-pattered on the tent top. A once soothing creek right behind our camp now gargled into the Cahaba River, as if it were angry.  The slow, steady rain had swollen both creek and river.  The noise likely wouldn’t have disturbed me had my air mattress not deflated sometime during my slumber. And it was getting colder in the night… for which I wasn’t adequately dressed. Nor was I prepared for the big rock that now positioned itself in the middle of my back as I lay on the cold, hard ground.  It seemed that amidst life’s discomfort… I needed better shelter. 

At sunrise, Chris Jackson and I got up to begin the day… Easter Sunday. Chris, an Executive Coach with C12 in Montgomery, has been a dear friend for much of my adult life. But more than that, he has been a spiritual mentor, accountability partner, brother in arms, and any number of other titles at various points in my life. A tarp hung lowly over the fire bed from the previous night. Chris, always thinking ahead, had anticipated the rain. After breakfast, Chris’ two youngest boys and my two oldest girls all scavenged the rain-soaked woods around trying to stave off boredom… there would be no floating further down the river today with the threat of some severe weather looming. We hunkered down to try to keep shelter from the elements. The rain, though, would not dampen the cause for celebration… and after the kids had all worked off some of their restless energy, we called them all back up to the campfire. The rain had slowed to a drizzle and the warmth of the fire, and the smell of the smoke was inviting. I read the Gospel’s account of the Resurrection, and Chris delivered a great devotional about the importance of finding Jesus wherever you are. He then commissioned the kids to conduct a very special scavenger hunt. “Go find something from nature and bring it back to the group and tell how you “found Jesus” in that piece of nature you bring back.” Before dismissing us, Chris reached into his pack and pulled out some bread and a small bottle of grape juice. Communion on the Cahaba… and on Easter Sunday, no less. What a memory to be made. And in memory of Him, we did.

Assembling the crew back together, Chris and I settled them down with a few ‘booger tales.’ For whatever reason, they didn’t believe Chris and I once captured Big Foot and shaved him down…. turns out he is really a French Poodle with a bad perm! One by one the kids opened their plastic Easter egg to reveal the fruit of their scavenger labor. Bay took a sweet gumball and cut it in half to signify the Crown of Thorns. Jake fashioned briars in a similar Crown. Cape put salt in her plastic egg and then read from the Good Book about how we are to be the salt of the earth. Grey held fast to a flat granite rock… “the cornerstone” he explained. And Chris and I both knew that these kids had truly found the Shelter they needed.  No rain, no passing thunderstorm, no flood of life… will ever sink their spirit. For they know well where to find Shelter… “[their] refuge and [their] fortress, [their] God, in whom [they] trust.” Psalm 91:2. A few hours later the sun majestically made a triumphant and glorious entrance in the treetops above our camp… and then just as quickly, disappeared again. I couldn’t help but think it was just a reminder that just as the sun and the rain falls on everything, His grace does too. Matthew 5:45. 

-Walt Merrell

A Christian Outdoorsman who writes of his adventures with his family, with the hope that others might be inspired and encouraged to embrace God’s tapestry, otherwise known as the great outdoors, as a means of finding Common Ground. You can follow him at Shepherding Outdoors on FB, YT and IG and at shepherdingoutdoors.com. His most recent book is available at shepherdingbook.com. Read his faith story at www.BirminghamChristian.com. 

The Great Outdoors

Even in the bitterest of cold January months, most of our eyes and hearts will start to drift toward spring. A few hunters, our family included, will stay focused on what we call the “deer woods” through mid-February, but even for us, after that, all eyes will turn toward the hope of seeds soon to be planted and blossoms to bud.

My wife, Hannah, loves to garden.  We plant a row crop garden with the tractor and back yard gardens in what most folks would call a watering trough. Our girls enjoy gardening too… especially our youngest, Banks and our oldest, Bay. The Middle Princess, her name is Cape, well… she loves to hunt… gardening, not so much.  

Cape, a senior in high school, hunts more than I do these days. Bay, now a Junior at Ole Miss, will “go” hunting with me, though she doesn’t always carry her own gun. She goes just so we can spend time together… “she and I,” as Randy Owen once sang. Banks, an eighth grader, hunts with me regularly, too. And Randy is right… that time she and I spend together is “great and wonderful.”

The girls’ grandfather, my dad, grew up in Sylacauga. He hunted quail more than anything as a child.  Back then, quail were prevalent, and quail hunting was a favorite pastime of Alabama gentlemen hunters. His dad, though… my grandfather, was a deer hunter. In 1959 he killed what was then a massive buck – all eight basket points. I still have the deer mount hanging on the wall in my study. He signed his name and dated the plywood backing. It smells slightly of formaldehyde, and it looks like a fawn hanging next to some of the deer we have taken in more recent years. He killed that buck near Talladega… in the National Forest. It was a prize that is rumored to have made several newspapers at the time.  

And though its small compared to more well-developed deer, it’s a prize to me today. Because of the memories it represents. Sometimes when I write about fishing adventures with my grandfather, or time spent at his Lay Lake cabin, I stare at the now 63-year-old relic… and recall catching bream or snapping turtles. For you see… that deer mount is not a trophy. To me, it’s something of an Ebeneezer Stone that reminds me of the things my grandfather taught me. Every time I see it, I think of him and the lessons I learned along the way. 

I’ve been intentional through the years to Shepherd my girls into adulthood, by way of the great Outdoors. Fact is, every time we go hunting, or work in the garden, or any other outdoor adventure we have, they learn so much more about life than they do about anything else. And I want to teach them those life lessons, because others did the same for me… 

What say you, all who are winter baron in the doldrums of a cold world? What seed do you plan to plant when the thaw comes? I pray its one that will bear fruit… for the harvest is plenty. 

Let’s go…. Shepherding Outdoors.   

-Walt Merrell

A Christian Outdoorsman who writes of his adventures with his family, with the hope that others might be inspired and encouraged to embrace God’s tapestry, otherwise known as the great outdoors, as a means of finding Common Ground. You can follow him at Shepherding Outdoors on FB, YT and IG and at shepherdingoutdoors.com. His most recent book is available at shepherdingbook.com. Read his faith story here.