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Got things in your life that are raw and painful? Memories of events? Unmet deep and legitimate longings? Patterns of sin? Loss or absence of a loved one? Maybe just difficult everyday circumstances that make life feel like ‘wilderness?’ Yeah, me too. Sometimes it’s simply okay to grieve. Okay to lament.
Well, I have a friend. Bill the ‘milker.’ We swap our stories and get alongside each other as we walk our paths, drink our cup.
Every Saturday morning, Bill the ‘milker’ milks the herd. I show up later to feed them. Somewhere around the barnyard (or when I was injured and couldn’t work, on my front porch) I will find a gift from Bill. It’s a handful of the sweetest smelling grass hay that he’s plucked from the feed bunk and fashioned into a knot. It may be covered with fresh falling snow, soaked in early morning dew, or tucked into a door handle. I know what to do. Something he’s already done. I gently lift it to my nostrils, inhale, and remember. Remember the Lord’s mercies. A good thing to do in the midst of lament.
“It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed because His compassion’s fail not. They are new every morning: Great is his faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23)
Barnyard of Heaven 