OH, DEER!

I’ve always been a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl and feel most comfortable when I’m casual. Oh, I can and do clean up well, for special occasions and throughout my career. But, make no mistake, those citified clothes are quickly shed and replaced with my personal fashion go-to’s mere minutes after returning home.

I’m not into graphics for graphics’ sake.  I like t-shirts that say something. Writing this when I am, during the time of COVID, my current seasonal favorite is “Spread Love ~ Not Germs.” Any t-shirt that promotes loving your neighbor or extending kindness will likely find its way into my cart, regardless of the fact I’ll have to stuff it into my already burgeoning dresser drawers. My all-time favorite though is “Raise Good Humans.” And you know what? Even with all my faults, failures, and foibles, I’ve done that. 

I’ve raised three good humans. They are not doctors or lawyers, they are not destined to cure cancer or win a Nobel Prize, but they’re good humans. Not without their imperfections, they love, respect, and lead their families well. They walk in faith, work hard, pay their bills, save for the future. They pour passion into their homes and relationships and freely share when there’s a need they can fill. They understand pride is dangerous and dignity is to be honored. They know that love is not always a feeling, but it is always a choice, and they make that choice. Yep, I’ve raised some pretty good humans.

Today, I’m remembering a time with my middle (or neglected) good human, Ed, who often declared he didn’t mind being the neglected middle child. That was partly due to his older brother’s continual testing of boundaries and the arguments that followed, and partly due to his younger sister’s constant chattering and need for mom’s attention. Ed was peacefully ensconced in the middle, and that was just fine with him. 

Ed is my genial introvert. He’s not as outgoing as everyone else in the family, but he’s as gracious and comfortable in any social or professional setting as any of the rest of us are. He was more taciturn during his hormonal teenage high school years and getting him to open up, to talk, was like pulling your own teeth…way more painful and so much easier to give up on. Unless you got him in a car! It was like magic.

The closing of the car doors automatically opened communication between us. The distance or the amount of time to arrive at our destination did not seem to be a factor. We immediately started talking and often got into deep conversations, even during our shorter jaunts. It’s a great privilege to be granted access to a teenage boy’s heart and mind, and it’s a great feeling to know your son trusts you enough to let you in. Fears, doubts, hopes, dreams, challenges and triumphs all came tumbling out, so I was singularly focused on listening to my son during our road trips.  I knew these precious moments would become cherished memories, like this one!

Ed tried football for two seasons in high school, but his heart wasn’t in it. That’s not just an idiom, it was fact. My son is a big boy, a solid wall of a good human; he could have knocked over his opponents as unfailingly as a perfectly thrown strike ball will topple all ten-pins. Sitting with the other parents filling the stadium seats as the games were played, Ed's lack of tackles was widely recognized, openly talked about, and not only universally attributed to his good heart, but universally accepted as well. Everyone just loved Ed for who he was, and not his tackling prowess.

I loved those fall football nights, sitting in the bleachers watching my son on the field during games, morphing into band-geek mom at halftime, when my daughter and the rest of the marching band took the field. 

I was not so enamored with the sport of wrestling, which Ed traded football for. Sweatier, stinkier, interminably longer practices, with day long meets and weekend long tournaments. There was less camaraderie among the parents of wrestlers, each group consumed with managing myriad essentials to carry them through the chaotic and highly uncomfortable hours ahead. 

It was about 10:30 on a Friday night, and I had just picked Ed up from an hours long wrestling practice. As was my normal, I put my window down as he came into the car, carrying with him a permeating musky stench. Did I mention I wasn’t a fan of the sport of wrestling? But I sure loved my son, and as was his normal, he started chatting at the thump of his door. Our drive home wasn’t long, less than four miles on the same stretch of highway as the high school.

It wasn’t a bad stretch of highway either, except for a wicked s-curve with a dip in the middle about half a mile from the school. Too many accidents, some catastrophic, happened at this spot when drivers failed to take seriously either the flashing lights, reduced speed signs or the reflective road markers the county so thoughtfully put in. I was not one of those drivers.

Keeping my ears tuned to the sound of my son sharing his night with me, but also keeping my eyes steadily on the road ahead of us, we sailed through the s-curve into an open and empty straight stretch of highway towards home. 

Then Ed said something that was witty or funny or punny. For the life of me, I don’t remember what it was; our family has been groaning over Ed's dad jokes and puns long before he became a dad. But this was a really good one. It didn’t produce belly aching laughter, just an involuntary chuckle and a “wow, you nailed it” kind of grin on your face. I knew it was funny, Ed knew it was funny, and we turned to share our grins. It wasn’t but a second, just a flick of our heads and back, and we found ourselves no longer alone on the road, the highway ahead no longer open and empty.

Materialized before us a family of deer that…were…not…there...mere seconds before. There were three of them, one on my side of the vehicle, two on Ed's side. Firmly planted, as if they’d always been firmly planted. They stood unmoving, like movie props anchored to well-established markers. For us though, the chosen markers were troubling, standing squarely on either side of our westbound lane. Living breathing animal versions of the orange cones used for driving tests. Failure was not an option. But neither, as it turns out, was action. There was no time.

Ed and I had barely enough time to draw in our collective breaths, as, like thread through the eye of a needle, the Malibu we were driving slid fluidly between the small herd, held on course by an unseen force. Passing by, in slow motion now, both Ed and I turned, looked out our respective windows and right into their eyes. Not apparitions, very much real animals. Large, damage-doing, life-ending animals, doe-fully looking right into our eyes, with not even a hint of feigned interest.

The breaths we’d been holding were expelled slowly, and in amazement. It took a few more deeps breaths before I asked my son, “you know what that was, right?” 

Tears of wonder were already streaming down my face when Ed replied, “yeah, that was God!” “Yeah,” I said. 

The rest of our short ride home was silent, each in our own quiet contemplation of how God had just saved us. How we just witnessed, no…involuntarily participated in…a miracle! 

There are so many things about this memory that I cherish, but these stand out as most precious to me.

The first is the complete absence of any hesitation in my son’s response, “yeah, that was God!” It was said as a statement of fact, the most concrete admission of God’s presence my son had ever uttered. It was a monumentally profound moment of recognition; of God by my son and of God’s work in my son’s life by me. 

Numbers 20:17 cries out to the Lord, “Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or through vineyard; we will not even drink water from a well. We will go along the king’s highway, not turning to the right or left, until we pass through your territory.” This is the next precious thing to me, knowing that my son and I not only passed through His territory, but that we did so in the shadow of His wings because in Him all things hold together. This was no mere deer in the headlights moment. They stayed in place, because He kept them in place, and it saved and changed us that night.

My soul truly pants when I consider the third amazing thing; there were three deer, perfectly representing the Triune God. The heavenly Father’s eyes locked on this earthly mother’s, wordlessly affirming all my soul needed for perfect peace; His undeniable sovereignty, His intimate knowledge of me, His good will for my life, and that He, even more than the deer He places in my path, is my well-established marker! And on the other side of us, His Son and His Spirit gazing deeply into my son’s eyes. I can’t know what They communicated to my son’s heart. That is his story to tell. But for this mother, it was a moment of serene understanding, a future promised; The Son of Man was seeing and seeking my son, and the Spirit was ready to come upon him, once Ed allowed himself to be found. 

This God memory is many years in the past, but it remains a favorite. Especially when I see my son now, no longer lost to The Son, but found and walking in faith in Christ Jesus. 

And I think to myself, Oh, Deer, All Glory to God!