During the morning, I visited a couple of Kiddie Kloset resales held at high schools in two local cities. We thought we were still two weeks away from having our baby and were in serious crunch time mode getting final details ready. I had a list of a few items that we just had to get for baby and for the boys. I spent time praying that God would provide the items we needed and returned home all smiles getting nearly everything on my list. Woohoo!! Praise the Lord and many thanks to the re-sellers for all the great deals!
As I arrived home, my camo-clad hubby was ready to head out to the woods for an evening of hunting whitetails with 2 of his fellow hunter friends. He kissed me goodbye and, opTIMistic as ever, told me that he'd be home late since he'd be out tracking a deer, of course. (By the way, I always say that it is no accident that his name is in the middle of the word "optimistic." That is how he lives his life and it's just one of the many reasons I love that man!) In light of a new addition soon arriving to our family, I knew that this would probably be the last time he went hunting for a while, maybe for the rest of the season. I really hoped he was right.
I want our sons to know that they can always take any request and go to the Lord in prayer. Since we were hoping that Daddy might get a deer, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to tell our Heavenly Father what was on our minds. The boys and I stopped playing around 6:30pm to take a moment & pray that God would bring a deer by Tim's tree stand. Then Tim sent a text at 6:59pm saying, "I think I got one down." So we waited in great suspense to hear more. But that was all we heard for a long time. I finally had to put the boys in bed because it was getting late. Matthew made me promise to wake him up if I found out that Daddy really got one. As soon as I tucked them in and left their room, an email from Tim arrived with this picture.
My first thought was, "Oh my goodness! Not only did he get a deer, but it's so big that it's making him look small behind it!" Since Matthew was still awake, I went and got him out of bed to see the photo. He was beyond excited. With eyes as big as quarters Matthew was jumping up and down exclaiming, "Daddy got that BUCK!?! Daddy got a BUCK with 8 points!?!" (I don't know how to count these things - does that little nubby count? It's either 8 or 7.5!) So we went back into their bedroom and had a little prayer time to thank God for providing for our family in this way. We were praising God because He is great & (as the boys and I had been singing and discussing that night) there's nothing that He cannot do!
Eventually, my happy hunter came home and told me the whole story from tree stand to truck, smiling all the while. (I think he still smiles whenever he thinks about it and probably will for a long time.) He's a little hesitant for me to use the term "Goliath," but if it took 3 big, strong guys to drag this beast out of the field, then I'm calling it how I see it.
Tim and his family like to care for their own meat rather than taking it to a meat market to be processed. I think it's worth the time spent and money saved; they do a great job! And even though he packed Goliath in ice, Tim was concerned about the temperature of the meat not dropping quickly enough. So Sunday night after hosting life groups at our house, butcher Tim went to work. He was able to get it sectioned out so that it could be put in coolers and the refrigerater that night.
Of course, he planned to be working on his meat throughout the rest of the week. But I got admitted to the hospital at my weekly doctor's visit the next day. (The doctor wanted baby's heart rate to be monitored for 24 hours, more to that story later...) And next thing you know, Jacob Daniel Lehr, perhaps a hunter himself one day, was born on Tuesday. The funny thing is that this was to be only the second deer Tim had taken care of entirely himself without help from his Father. (Actually Tim's very kind Dad has processed all of his Michigan deer for the last several years.) But because I never returned home from my appointment on Monday, Tim's parents came down, not only to watch little boys, but to cut venison. Sadly, with everything happening so quickly, we never got to weigh the deer, but with ninety pounds (about as much as he usually gets from two deer) of venision coming off of it, it surely weighed in at over two hundred.
The timing of it all was a little crazy, but we are so grateful for the many ways God provided for our family.
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