Author: Stephanie Rollins

In my last post about quitting, I wrote “When we refuse to be talked off our rock, He waits until we’re ready.”  This expression— “talked off our rock”— is personal.  It comes from my trip with the National Outdoor Leadership School  which I mentioned in the same post.  

I hesitate to share the story at all.  I recognize that there are harder circumstances than the one I experienced.  I’m even embarrassed to share it with my husband because he endures misery so well, and occasionally climbs mountains for fun.  Most recently he climbed Mt. Rainier with his sister and my brother, both of whom are the types to run marathons with little effort and with all their toenails intact in the end.  

But I remind myself it isn’t about how difficult the circumstance, but about whatever circumstance it is that brings you, the individual, to the end of yourself.  And so, I choose to share it.

NOLS is similar to Outward Bound, but I believe more technical and arduous.  The U.S. Naval Academy sends trainees to NOLS.  You can see a quick video on that here: USNA to NOLS .

Everything you need goes in a pack on your back.  You share cooking and camping responsibilities with a small group of four or five.  You learn compass and map reading, along with first aid.  On a typical day, you wake up at 5:30 A.M. and cook breakfast on a camp stove.  Then you clean the pan with snow or water from the nearest river, and break down camp.  You practice “Leave No Trace” ethics, packing out every article of trash and returning the campsite to the way it was before you arrived.  Once packed up, you set out in small groups for the day’s hike or activity, keeping to your TCP, or time control plan.  You eat leftovers for lunch during a short break, and then move out again.  Once you reach your “X”, you set up camp, cook dinner, clean pots, write the next day’s TCP, and do it all again.  And as the group faces the challenges, responsibilities, and exhaustion together, leadership is also taught.  

Before I went, my brother Trey gave me a letter.  It changed my outlook and experience.  I am convinced that had I not had his NOLS Letter, I would’ve entirely missed the point.

There are so many stories to share from NOLS, and I may tell more of them over time.  But if I had to pick just one, it’s this.

The Boulder Field 

This is it.  This is where I quit, I thought. 

My brother, a NOLS grad several times over, had warned me that I would hit my wall.  That I would meet myself.  And this was it, the day before my twenty-first birthday in the Wind River Range of Wyoming, as the wind picked up and thunder rolled into a cold drizzle against my face.  

I was standing on a rock just large enough for me and my pack, looking at the backs of my small group moving away from me and farther apart from one another.  No one was within earshot, and even if they had been, the wind would have carried my voice away with it.  No, I was alone, and I was alone in that moment whether surrounded by tent mates or not. 

If I just sit here, my instructor will have to come back for me, I thought.  This is where I will be, because I cannot go any farther.  And she will realize I have stopped moving, and she will come back for me.  

I was a third of the way through the boulder field that seemed never to end.  

Earlier we had gazed down and out over it from the top of the pass, and our hearts had broken.  Our fifth day on the course, this was the most difficult boulder field yet, and unexpected.  Our instructor had misread our location three times, and three times we had reached the summit of a pass only to learn that we were not where we thought we were and would need to keep moving.  With bodies aching, spirits sinking, we had pushed ourselves past the lines we had drawn for ourselves, working our way up steep elevation gains to finally reach our “X.”  

“It’s just up here at the top of this ridge,” she had said.  And we had fought to hit it.  But studying her face at the top, I quickly realized we were still lost.  I searched her expression, knowing in my gut we wouldn’t set up camp there on that ridge.  I looked out over the boulder drainage, the largest one I’d seen, and told myself there was no way that she would ask us to go down that way.  Not after everything we’d been through.  Desperately I had watched her, waiting. 

“We’re not where we’re supposed to be.  We need to push through this boulder field.  We’ll make camp down in that valley on the other side.  We’ll find the rest of the group in the morning,” she said.  

No one spoke.  Usually at NOLS, tent mates talk while they hike.  They chat, complain,  encourage, tell jokes and tell stories.  But NOLS also has those silent moments, when the circumstances, or the view, or the shared gravity of conquering or being conquered claims your collective breath like a vacuum.  And nothing is spoken or needs to be.  

The instructor then started off, moving at a quick pace, navigating up and over and around boulders ranging in size from half a foot to eight feet in diameter.  And we all set out behind her, growing farther apart from one another as each and every rock took uneven amounts of time to scale.  

In some places, the rock was loose and gave beneath your foot with your weight.  I watched as Jon, the strongest and most burly of us, scraped up his leg as it disappeared inside a crumbling bed of rock.  I remember the smell of heated stone from the friction as it gave way, the dust billowing out in a cloud around his waist, and the look of fear that gripped his face.  

The sixty-pound pack made it difficult to move on small and large rocks.  At that moment, I had just shimmied around one boulder and stepped onto another one, only to find a four-foot gap separating me from the next boulder.  I was on an island, and I was done. 

What will she say when she gets to me? I asked myself.  

I assessed my surroundings.  I am on an island of rock, in the center of a boulder field, on the side of a ridge, with a storm blowing in and the sun going down. 

The rain was picking up, each drop heavy and deliberate, slapping my skin and coating my eyelashes.  A helicopter won’t pick me up off of this rock, and even if it could, I’m not injured.  The pack horse won’t pick me up off of this rock, and even if it could, re-ration isn’t at this location and it isn’t for three days.  She will know this, and she will talk me off this rock.  If I refuse, she will continue to talk, and offer me an arm, but either way, she has to talk me off this rock. 

And then it came, the realization:  I can make my instructor come back to talk me off this rock, or I can talk myself off this rock.  Either way, I have to walk off this rock.  Quitting the way I wanted wasn’t really an option.  There was only taking another step.

And that was my moment— the moment when I took ownership of my story.  I knew I didn’t want my story to be the one where my instructor had to come back for me.  But the story I wanted to write couldn’t live alongside my feelings, so as I watched, my storyteller put a chokehold on how I felt.  I was no longer quitting, I was taking another step.  

It took minutes.  I talked to myself a lot before I made a move, and I didn’t shut up.  I don’t remember what all I said, I only know that eventually I took that next step, and the next one, and the next one, until I was to the end of that boulder field.  

I watched Jon ahead of me when he reached the end himself, watched him drop his pack, hit his knees, and start crying.  And then it was my turn to step off the last rock into the valley beyond it.  

That night we made camp, and briskly ate, and went to bed.  Around midnight our instructor woke us up and asked us to assume “lightning position” until the thunderstorm above us passed.  It was torturous to get up and out of our sleeping bags.  We huddled up within our tent, balanced on our beat and tender toes, hugging our knees, listening to the thunder shake overhead and rip at the sides of our shelter.  And we woke again at 5:30 A.M. to another day of pushing hard.  We were not done.

But for me, I was no longer the same person.  At the end of that day I knew— not hoped, but knew— that I would finish the remaining twenty-three days of the course.  I had acquired a skill— an ability to talk myself— that fortified me the rest of that trip, and the rest of my life.  It got me through a marathon and law school and the bar exam, and a career as a criminal prosecutor frequently in trial.  It got me through three childbirths and the continued sacrifice that came with parenting.  And it got me through a thousand small, everyday moments when taking that next step meant talking myself off the spot I currently occupied.  

At the end of my NOLS course, when small groups hike for several days without instructors, I was selected to be our group’s leader.  I tried to lead from behind, to solicit input and foster a spirit of equality and teamwork.  But whatever leadership role I practiced, be it designated leader or active follower or peer leader, none has had a greater influence on my life than the self leadership I learned on that boulder field.  To act as my own instructor, my own advocate, my own story teller.   

Nine strangers began that NOLS course together, and eight finished, one girl quitting within that first week.  I remember trying to talk to her, to talk her off her rock.  But every mosquito and every blister seemed to drive her more deeply into her own misery.  I remember watching her leave on a pack horse, the lazy rocking back and forth of that horse’s backside with her on it, as they made their awkwardly slow exit toward headquarters.  I remember feeling embarrassed for her, as she so publicly admitted defeat.   But more importantly, I was sad for her story.  

She, like all of us, had the power to tell it the way she wanted.  I wanted her to write about the part where we reached the top of the Continental Divide, dropped our packs in victory and felt the glamorous relief of wind hitting our sweaty backs where the packs had been.  I wanted her to write about how we found a cairn there at the top with a thermos buried inside filled with notes from hikers who had come that way, and how we read so many and added ones ourselves and sang together there.  I wanted her to write about the time the guys intentionally shot the bear spray inside the tent to see what it was like, and then came tumbling out like bees from a hive crying and yelling, and how hours later when all recovered how we laughed and laughed and laughed about it.  But she wasn’t there for that.  In her great face-off, it was her storyteller that drew its final breath. 

For me, NOLS is about the story you tell, and the larger one that is written when each individual’s different story of endurance and self-sacrifice comes together to create an entirely new, unique, and incredibly powerful experience.  Each and every course that goes out and comes back writes their own, and each is filled with tears and laughter and accomplishment and growth.  For me nothing has been the same since NOLS, and I’m forever grateful for that boulder field where I met myself, where I gave voice to my feelings and watched them fall lifeless from the grips of an adventure writer who stepped over them and off that rock, and never looked back.  

My brother has also written about NOLS.  Here is his piece: Star Gazing from the Gutter.

 

 September was not my best month.  It was a bumpy, inefficient take-off into the school year.  Days on days of getting less done than I planned, feeling over-committed and under-fueled, and every day adding much-needed items to my self-care wishlist that rarely gets checked.

In months such as these, I sometimes engage in protests.  Personal, silent ones, that in the end serve only to punish me.  It makes no sense, and it’s incredibly childish, but I do it all the same.  For example, I have more than once staged a revolt on the dishes.  They have the audacity to be dirty, again!  So I refuse to wash them before bed.  Just.  Not.  Gonna.  I make them wait until the morning.  You know, until all the food is stuck on and the job is twice as hard.  Take that, dishes!  Or, I refuse to fold the laundry.  It will have to wait until tomorrow when all the wrinkles are set.  Take that, clothes!

Once I staged a walkout (with Derek’s help and blessing) and checked into a hotel room for one night— all by myself.  I enjoyed the quiet solitude until I filled up once more with gratitude for the noises of home.  I was the person who visited the hotel bar in her pajamas to order wine and cheesecake.     

About all of this, I’m a little embarrassed.  I’d like to think I can do it all, all the time, without a break or breakdown.  To do that though I would need to act preventatively, as Jesus did.  He frequently retreated to be alone with the Lord, and in this way, stayed ahead of it, ensuring He had enough of God’s heart and vision to survive the demands of the world.  Or at least, modeled that method for us, whether He needed it or not.  But sometimes, I just get too busy and distracted.  

I am not alone.  Some of the Bible’s heaviest hitters threw fits.  Including Elijah, one of God’s greatest prophets.  Elijah was a miracle-working powerhouse who, in 1 Kings 18, challenged the many prophets of Baal to a face off at Mount Carmel, fearlessly confronting them and King Ahab in a movie-worthy scene.  The chapter began with Elijah single-handedly taking on the sin of a nation, and ended with him dramatically praying both fire and rain down from heaven, and then outrunning the king’s chariot in the spirit of the Lord. 

But then in chapter 19, the Elijah of the previous chapter is gone.  Instead of standing strong when threatened as he’d done before, he ran for his life into the wilderness.  He sat down under a broom tree and gave up.  He then told the Lord that he’d had enough— enough prophesying, and obeying, and self-sacrifice.  He was done, and he asked the Lord to kill him.

In yet another demonstration of His grace, God’s response to this was kind.  He heard him out, and let him sleep.  He served him, sending an angel to feed and nourish him.  God drew him to Himself, and then showed him both His might and His tenderness.  He took his complaint, and gave him direction, and encouraged him, lovingly and firmly.  

And just like with Adam, God didn’t shame Elijah in order to change his mind.  He asked only a simple question:  “What are you doing here?”  God seems to know what great examiners know: let a man talk, and his excuses will do the heavy lifting of conviction.     

But at the end of the day, as kind as God was, there are two hard truths here.  (1) God still asked Elijah to keep going, at least a little farther.  Dying under a broom tree was not an option.  He had to dust it off, take the next step, and play the man.  (2)  It is here, after this encounter, that God arranged for Elijah’s replacement.  A similar scenario to that of Moses.  Or Gideon.  Or the people of Israel requesting a king in 1 Samuel.  At a certain point you get what you ask for, even if that means God carries on without you.  God’s book is very much a “choose your own adventure,” even though He tells you which page He hopes you pick.  

In my life, I have quit things I wish I hadn’t.  As a girl I quit ballet the year I would have played Clara in The Nutcracker.  I quit cheerleading my final year of high school.  I quit some good relationships.  With all of these— though God ultimately blessed it— I made the decision out of fear, fatigue, or complacency, even though I knew it was not God’s highest or best for me.  

I have also not quit things.  I didn’t quit on the month-long backpacking course I took with National Outdoor Leadership School.  I am proud of that.  I did not quit the marathon I committed to finish in 2005, though I vomitted twice, lost a toe nail, walked half of it, and only barely hobbled across the line.  And I’ve not yet ever considered quitting on God or my marriage or my kids, despite my periodic hissy fits.    

God is kind to us.  He joins us right where we sit down, and begins a conversation.  And He works with whatever we have left that’s workable.  But when we stop listening, He stops speaking.  When we harden up, He gives us over.  When we refuse to be talked off our rock, He waits until we’re ready.  Even if we never are.  And this terrifies me. 

I am certain there will be more times ahead when I enter too much into the telling of my own story.  Or when, like Mitchell does to me, I try to turn the page on God even when He’s mid-sentence.  But oh, Lord, let me not screw it up too much!  I hunger to see the fullness of Your glory as You meant for me to see it.  

And when life drives me, or my children, under a broom tree, may we always be willing to stand up once more, walk out to the entrance of the cave and listen— through the mighty wind and the shattering cliffs and the earthquake and the fire— for Your still, small voice on the back end of the passing storms.  

And so with that, goodbye, September.  And hello there, October.      

 

Several months ago, a video went around social media of a boy, barely old enough to know the alphabet, quoting a Bible verse for each letter of the alphabet.  It was super impressive.  In case you missed it, here is the link:

Little Boy Quotes Bible Verses For Each Letter Of Alphabet

He really inspired me.  He inspired my kids.  If this little boy could do it, why couldn’t we?  So I played it slowly, and wrote them all out.  And then over the next several weeks, we learned them.  My girls, ages 9 and 6, got super into it.  And most of all, they loved to be quizzed on it.  They were proud of themselves.  [If you’d like to have the verses, click here: A-Z Bible Verses]

It reminded me of being a kid with my Dad.  He loved to study the Bible, and he made it super fun.  As a child, we enjoyed trivia games, “find that book in the Bible” races, and good, old fashioned sibling competition.  At a very young age, we memorized the books of the Bible in order.  It was knowledge that I was always so grateful to have learned, and it proved quite useful throughout my life.

So, when the kids finished the A-Z verses, we started in on the Old Testament books.  To help us memorize, and to remember what the books were mostly about, we made up a hand gesture for each one.  Camden and Ellie had so much fun, and now they are really proud of themselves!  And we’ve inspired some of our family to learn them, too.

Certainly, no one needs to memorize the books of the Bible.  And if this post makes you feel as though you or your kids should know this already, please dismiss that condemning voice.  But in the hope that it inspires you, I share it.  (That, and to preserve it.  In this, my vault).

Here is our cheat sheet explaining each book and its hand gesture: Old Testament Books Cheat Sheet

And here is a home video of my girls demonstrating them: Cam & Ellie recite OT books

We are looking forward to doing the same for the New Testament.  The girls also wanted new verses to memorize beyond the A-Z list, so I have plans for us to learn a memory verse from each of the Old Testament books next.  If I can pick a summarizing verse from each, that will also help them to hold an overview in their minds.  Look for these in future posts!

If you’ve always wanted a good overview of the Old Testament, but have found it overwhelming, Melton Short wrote a wonderful book called The Bible Made Simple.  You can find it here: WorldImpactMinistries.Org

I realize that if you are following this blog, I must sound to you like a broken record.  Everything seems to be about God, and about how I see His love letter everywhere.  I know, I know.  Blah.  But I really struggle to write about anything else.  It’s the thing that moves me to write.  I love to read about all kinds of things, but when I try to write on other topics, I end up looking like Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail: delete, delete, delete, delete, delete.  Backspace.

So, at the risk of sounding redundant, I saw another kind of love letter when I started summarizing the books of the Bible for my kids.  If you open my cheat sheet, and just read the column titled “God’s message,” there is such a lovely note there to us.  If you never plan to crack the spine on your Bible, or the idea of diving into Scripture overwhelms you, just read that column.  You’ll hear His voice.  And should you land on a sentence that particularly moves you, don’t ignore that prompting.  Find your Bible, open it up to that book, and just start.  It’s never too late to just start.  The most beautiful love letter, from the most incredible Person, is waiting.

 

This past Saturday, my family watched the Texas Longhorns beat USC in a highly entertaining game of football.  Our kids put on their longhorn shirts even though we stayed home, and we all sang the fight song following touchdowns.  And throughout the game, I enjoyed seeing photos of friends wearing burnt orange at the stadium only ten miles away from our house.  

My heart has always belonged to UT.  My Dad went to Texas.  I remember making the trip to Austin for a game as young as four years old.  I remember the first time I heard the band’s drums, the way the sound shot an electrical current through me that reverberated and grew as we followed the band to the field.  I remember the announcer’s voice, and the energy in the air.  I remember Dad buying me a plastic pom pom, and a beautiful cheerleader drawing horns on my cheek.   

Since I went to SMU for my undergraduate degree, law school was my last chance at UT.  My last chance to make it mine.  

When it was time for me to apply, I applied to five law schools across Texas: one to which I thought for certain I’d be admitted, three to which I wasn’t sure, and then one dream school I was fairly confident would not accept me.  That one was UT.  When letters came back, I had only two options: my “for certain” school, and one of the three.  I was outright rejected from the rest, including Texas.  

It was no surprise.  

I spent several months settling into the idea of attending my “for certain” school.  My brother was there; my boyfriend was there.  It was a fun city, and it had a great church.  It would be great.  I said that over and over, but somewhere deep down in my heart, I was disappointed.  I knew my dream of UT was crazy, but it was real.  And so was my sadness.  

One day, I was bummed enough that I had to tell God about it.  I went into my bedroom in the apartment I shared with my best friend, and I shut the door.  I got down on my knees, and I prayed.  I even cried.  

I told the Lord how sad I was.  I told Him that I knew that I didn’t deserve to go to UT, but I wanted to all the same.  I needed Him to know how heartbroken I felt.  I knew that I sounded ridiculous, and I promised Him that once I finished praying I wouldn’t whine or be sad anymore.  I just needed to tell Him where my heart was, and I had nowhere else to turn.  

I left it all there.  With Him.

When I finally got up, I went out to the living room where my best friend sat watching T.V.  “Have you checked the mail today?” she asked.  I hadn’t, and I welcomed the excuse to take a walk.  Slowly I made my way to the mail room and opened up our tiny tin box.  Inside I found a letter from the University of Texas School of Law.  But why?  I received my rejection letter weeks ago, and it had been conclusive— no wait list, no “let’s wait and see.”  It was just a NO, and it was sitting back home on my desk. 

My hands started to shake.  I clumsily opened the letter, and read the first line: “Upon reconsideration of your application, you have been accepted to the University of Texas School of Law.”

Now, here is where the unbeliever would say something like: “Well clearly they mailed that letter before you started praying, so the prayer couldn’t have been why you were accepted.”  Or, “surely you got in because of your connections,” or something along those lines.  But I’m not interested in all that.  What I know is that I didn’t get in, but God.  

In John chapter 9 when Jesus healed the man born blind, the Pharisees quizzed that poor man repeatedly about how he got his sight.  With all their knowledge and learning, they wanted to get to the bottom of how something like that could ever have happened.  They asked him over and over again about the teacher who’d done it, but the poor man was so simple and certain in his response.  How he did it, he answered, he didn’t know.  But, he said, “one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”  

 The blind man wasn’t all that concerned with where the teacher came from, whether or not he was a sinner, or on what day he performed the healing.  What mattered to him was that his life was changed.

God’s people used to stack stones in remembrance.  Whenever God showed up in a noteworthy way, they would make a memorial.  It was by God’s design.  It was important to Him that we tell future generations about the meaning of it all.  He wanted our kids to ask, “What do these stones mean to you?”, and for our answer to be the stories of His faithfulness.  Why? Because real stories, our stories, inform our faith in the face of fear.  They make Him real.  They make Him not just an in-theory God, but an active-in-my-life God.

People who don’t know Him like to think that He’s too busy with important stuff to answer prayers like mine.  “Why should He care what law school you went to?” they ask.  But these daily grinds— the dreams, fears, and real life heartbreaks— are exactly what He cares about.  That blind man.  A people hiding out in a desert.  Me.  He really does love us, just the way we are, like a parent would.   

It wasn’t a no name person who heard me that day; it was the God of the living— of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.  The God of the creation, and the parted Red Sea, and of Jericho.  The same God who showed up for David’s lions, bears, and then giants, also showed up for mine.

Derek and I have a brick at the law school.  In 2013, we took our girls to a football game, and to the school, and to our brick.  For me, that brick is so much more than my name at a school I attended.  It’s a memorial, and it comes with a story.  And when Camden asked, “why is this here?”, I had an answer.  It began, “Once, I didn’t get into UT.  But now, I am an alumna.”   

 

The world has many voices.  Regarding food and diet, they can be rather confusing.  One day butter is in, then it is out.  The next day, it’s carbs.  Or sugar.  Or protein.  One study proves a result, and then another study disproves it.  And every week, a new diet promises to be the real deal– the way to live the healthier, leaner, better version of yourself than you are today.

In the midst of all that noise, what do you believe?

I, myself, can become entangled.  A few years ago, I watched the documentary “What the Health?”.   It totally freaked me out about the meat and dairy industries, so then I read The China Study, a long and detailed breakdown of the evidence supporting a whole food, plant-based diet.  Then I cut meat out of most weekday meals, and you (my children) started asking questions like, “Do these meatballs have meat in them?”, something I never dreamed my kids would think to ask.  After all, I am a Texan hunter.

I became a little stressed.  I’d stand in the Lunchables aisle at the grocery store and think, “These would make my life so much easier, but deli meat will poison my kids!”  It was not a place of peace.

The many voices may come, in time, to steal your peace, too.

In the midst of my “whole food” revolution, I studied Finding I Am by Lysa Terkeurst.  An entire week of that study was dedicated to Jesus’ statement: “I am the bread of life.”  I wondered how bread could ever be bad for us, if Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life.  So I started reading about bread.

I learned that today’s manufactured bread has dozens and dozens of ingredients, while the ancient bread required only flour and water.  I watched the “Air” episode of Cooked on Netflix about real, slow rise bread, and bought a “real bread” cookbook.

Bread is a miracle.  When you take ground wheat from the earth and add water and air, those three things come together and transform into something new and alive that, when you add fire to bake, becomes bread.  A gift from Heaven.  Like manna.  A miracle by which the seed (full of vitamins, minerals and potential) becomes something digestible, healthy, satisfying and delicious.  Real bread is a gift from God.

So what else, I wondered, could the Bible tell me about food?

What I found silenced the many voices.  What I found was a love letter of freedom.

God says in the Bible that all food is intended for His glory, and it’s all there to be enjoyed and savored, to satisfy our hearts.  Meat, green plants, fish, honey, quail, bread, and even wine.  Food doesn’t commend us to God, or make us better or worse in His sight.  God welcomes us to eat and be filled, and to praise Him in it.

He cautions that not all food is profitable, and that we shouldn’t allow it to master us.  He says definitively to never eat or drink if it causes another to stumble.  But we shouldn’t obsess over it, worry about it, or let it steal our joy.

He points out that dieting is of only limited profit, and He begs us to set our sights on godliness instead.  He says a beautiful woman who lacks discretion is like a gold ring in a pig’s snout, and a truly beautiful woman is the one who fears Him.

I encourage you, my daughters, to go to Him with your own questions.  He knows what worries you.  He anticipated it, and spoke into it.  The message is one of freedom, love, and grace.

Our families always want to feed us.  Moms, aunts, grandmothers.  They say, “Eat something,” or “Let’s put some meat on those bones,” as they pull out a pot and ladle it up.  I do this for you.  You will do it to your children.  But the Father of all families– He “from whom every family in heaven and on earth gets its name” (Eph 3:15)– does it, too.  He says, “Eat, drink, and be merry.  Let me make you some food.  Tell Me, what do you think?  It’s good, isn’t it?  And it’s all for you.”

 

[I wrote down all the Bible verses about food that I found and have shared them with you here.]

 

My nine-year-old daughter, Camden, hates to make mistakes.  She wants to tear out the paper and begin anew as soon as there’s a blemish on the page.  She is harder on herself than I could ever be, often inflicting her own punishment and dwelling in her disappointment.  Yesterday she forgot her school lunch in her Dad’s truck, so during the lunch hour she decided to suffer the consequence and go hungry.  Her friends convinced her she needed to eat something, so she bought a breadstick from the cafeteria.  As in, a single breadstick.  That was all she would allow herself after her error.    

She has always been this way.  It sounds like the cruel result of an overbearing parent, but I promise you that’s not the case.  It is simply who she is.  In my defense, look no farther than Ellie.  We parent Ellie the exact same way, and she does NOT suffer from this issue.  She has plenty of her own shortcomings, none of which affect her sleep.  Or her appetite.  If Ellie had discovered a missing lunch, she would have shrugged her shoulders, sauntered up to the lunch lady and declared: “One of each, please!” 

Last week I came across (and fell in love with) a painting at The Art Institute of Chicago.  It was an oil painting by Jusepe de Ribera called Penitent Saint Peter.  It depicts the disciple praying, presumably after his denial of Christ.  One hand is stretched toward heaven, the other is pressed to his chest.  His face is earnest and remorseful, but he is bathed in light.    

I never realized how similar Peter’s story was to that of his fellow disciple, Judas, until Lisa-Jo Baker pointed it out in her book We Saved You A Seat.  Both Peter and Judas were Jesus’ followers and friends, both betrayed him, and afterward both felt intense regret and wept bitterly.  Where they differ, she noted, is how they handled their failure.  

Sadly, Judas committed suicide.  Whereas, the next time we hear about Peter he is the only one of the disciples who, after hearing about Jesus being raised from the dead, took off running toward the tomb.   

Not away from, but toward. 

Then later while fishing, he saw Jesus standing on the shore.  Realizing it was Him, Peter plunged into the sea toward Jesus while the others remained in the boat.  Baker wrote:

“…the more I study, the more convinced I am that each of their unique plot twists hinge on whether or not they believed Jesus could and would forgive them… Judas was crushed by the weight of his own guilt, and it killed him.  But Peter, oh Peter.  He went running and splashing, guilt and all, to Jesus.”

That’s what I see when I look at Ribera’s painting.  Or similar ones by  Caravaggio.  In the contrast of light and dark, in the weathered faces and worn out robes, I see both the human— trembling, frail, dirty, limited— and the spirit.  The former submitting, sin and all, however clumsily, to the latter.

It breaks my heart when I sit with a crying, disappointed Camden.  The sight of her quivering chin and watery eyes is a knife to my heart.  What I desperately want her to learn is that the best place for her after a fall is not the shadows, but the light.  I want her to insist on hurdling the voice of condemnation and sprinting for God’s presence.  

After Peter showed up sopping wet on the shore before Jesus, you know what he found?  A charcoal fire, fresh fish on the grill, and bread.  Jesus had made him breakfast.  

   Camden, baby, next time you forget your lunch, be it tomorrow or thirty years from now, don’t let that be the end of you.  Just come home.  If I’m around, I’ll make you breakfast.  If I’m not, I know your Father will.  

 

When I met your father, something about him stuck with me.  I had the strangest thought: I want to meet his kids. 

Weird, I know.  But I couldn’t shake that thought.  I was too sensible, maybe, or too cautious to say “I want to HAVE his kids.”  But to meet them, that was something I turned over and over in my mind.  It was odd, and I couldn’t explain it, but I thought it all the same. 

I did marry him and have his kids.  Your sisters.  First came Camden, and after her came Ellie.  All was perfect.  We fit comfortably into a compact car.  Or at a table for four.  Or in a single hotel room.  We, as parents, were not outnumbered.  There was more than plenty.  And neither of us needed a boy.   

But your Dad wanted one more.  Inexplicably and against reason.  One.  More.  Child.

Of course not, I said.  

I didn’t enjoy pregnancy, or labor and delivery.  I didn’t like hospitals.  I felt firmly set on our two and no more.  Normally I come around to your Dad, but this time I was so certain— so against it— I didn’t give in.  I held my ground.  For a long, long time.  

Every now and then, he’d bring it up.  And when he did I’d put up all my resistance— list all my reasons why not— and hope with all I had in me that he’d decide I was right.  

Then one day, while soaking in my bubble bath (where I do lots of my thinking and pondering), I argued my case to God.  I laid it all out for Him.  I was certain He’d agree with me, and then when He did, I’d make my case for changing Derek’s heart.  I delivered my last line, rested my case, and sighed.  

Then in my mind, I heard His answer: 

FEAR.  FEAR.  FEAR.  FEAR.  FEAR.   

Just like that, He saw about each of my reasons what even I didn’t have eyes to see.  As soon as He said it, I knew He was right.  I knew what He wanted me to do. 

I knew if I waited to finish my bath, I’d talk myself out of it.  So, dripping wet and wrapped in a bath towel I padded across the house to your father.  I said: “I feel that I’ve heard from God, and if I don’t tell you now I’ll take it back.  Whether we have another child is your decision to make.  Whatever you decide, that is what we’ll do.”

Even though he knew what he wanted, he waited six more months for the right time.  (That’s the kind of guy your father is.  You will never rush him.).  

I remember the moment I told him I was pregnant.  

I remember the moment I found out you were a boy.  

And I remember countless nights, sitting in my bathtub, praying fervently against the fear I still felt.  About another c-section, another epidural.  I’d had two already, I knew there was no way to have a pleasant one.  No way to feel joyful about  lying on a surgery table beside a tray of instruments, feeling your lower half swallowed by paralysis, feeling so numb you can’t tell if you’re breathing, while they strap you down and the panic sets in… 

I could feel the fear, even taste it.  The only way I fought it was to pray.  

I prayed His promises over me.  I prayed things I didn’t even really have the faith to believe but I wanted them to be true.  So I said them over and over in the dark.  You have not given me a spirit of fear.  I will not fear, for You are with me.  Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.  

I even prayed specifics.  For reasons I can’t explain, I prayed that you’d be born before September.  Something to do with when you’d start Kindergarten I thought. Or maybe not getting in the way of the holidays.  (But then we learned your due date was September 20^th and there was no way to answer that one.)  

I prayed about the hospital, and the doctors, and the staff, and the experience, and your health.  I prayed that God would find a way— a risk-free, scare-free  way— to surprise me with the date and time.  I knew if it was a scheduled surgery (as it was destined to be) that I would spend the entire night before it gripped by anxiety.  I prayed that somehow, I’d see a miracle of the Lord and find my delivery pleasant.  I prayed that you’d be an easy baby, because my third child would have to be easy for me to be okay.

Then one day, around my 37^th week, I went for my regular check up.  Your Dad happened to be with me because work just happened to be kind of clear for him that day, and we had plans to eat lunch together.  I’d had a great night’s sleep, and I was excited for Mexican food with your Dad.  This was turning into such a great day!  

The doctor listened to your heartbeat and very casually suggested that while there was no concern, she’d like to listen more closely at the hospital.  Would we mind heading over there?  

At the hospital, while I chatted it up with your father about upcoming queso, the doctor suggested we go ahead and deliver you, just to play it all safe.  And in that moment, I knew.

I smiled from ear to ear.  I knew what this was!  God had done it!  This was it, the answer to prayer: I’d SKIPPED the night of stress and nerves, I’d skipped it ALL!  

And…(drum roll)… it was August 31, 2016.  (He answered that one, too, just in case I had any doubt.)  

My delivery was dreamy.  I actually enjoyed it.  The anesthesiologist was so handsome and attentive, and kept rolling into my view to ask if I needed more drugs.  (I only have eyes for your father; I’m just relaying facts here.  Wonderful, wonderful facts.)  For recovery time they let me stay with your Dad unlike any time before, and those moments were simply magic.  

Our three days at the hospital were delightful.  Your Dad and I joke that it was the best overnight date we’d had in a while: nurses took you away when I was tired, we ate delicious food in a quiet, cold room and talked and laughed and watched T.V. together while family kept your sisters.  

And Mitch, YOU. WERE. PERFECT.  Easy.  Sweet.  Healthy.  Gorgeous.  All boy.    

Every bit, from top to bottom, an answered prayer.  Every bit a gift I didn’t know I wanted.  You were an entire plot line— written into your father’s life about redemption and fathers and sons, and one written into mine about trust and faith and hope and prayer— that a masterful Story Teller wove into our lives.  You were, in my arms, the greatest reward I’ve yet known.  You were your father’s hope, and God’s plan, and my SON.

Mitchell McLean Rollins, you are the third of your father’s kids.  And I am so honored to meet you.  

 

Over three hundred shipwrecks lay on the ocean floor at the entrance to San Francisco Bay.  The spot is known as Land’s End, and a hiking trail by the same name runs along the shore overlooking this particularly hazardous stretch of water.  This is one of my favorite hikes, and we took our kids last week while on the long road home from Seattle.  The trail is dreamy for a Texan like me: cold, salty winds, and majestic vistas of wild cliffs and raging seas, with the Golden Gate Bridge rising up through the fog in the distance.  But for the ship captain, that waterway is a dangerous gauntlet of tides, rocks, and fog that brought many a vessel to its grave. 

Recently I learned that a childhood friend of mine had, now in adulthood, lost his faith in God.  When his job asked him to look closely at child abuse for a time, he concluded that if such an evil exists, then God couldn’t also.       

Many of my earliest childhood memories involve his family.  Their house was the house I went to after school if my Mom couldn’t get me.  Our families were close.  I remember vividly his mother’s laugh, and her African stew with sticky rice and peanuts.  I remember meeting his father’s eye over my mom’s shoulder as she held me in the pew at church, and him making funny faces at me, like crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out, until I giggled and his face dissolved into a warm and playful smile.  (Their Dad had the best smile.)  Once I went home from school sick to their house, and ended up throwing up all over their living room carpet.  It was embarrassing and I felt terribly, but their Mom wrapped me up in a huge hug and told me it was all okay.   

His was a family of strong believers.  We knew them from church, and his parents were, like mine, committed to the Lord.  He and his brothers were raised, as we were, with God everywhere: three times a week at church, in conversation, in friendship, in life lessons and spankings, in the giving of thanks at meals and every other time, and in the answer to every real question asked.

This news of him, some thirty years later, made me sad.  It grieved my heart.  I wished we were still close.  Close enough that I had been there at his crossroads.  The moment he held child abuse in one hand, and God in the other, and then laid one down.  I would have told him this:

I stood here, too.  For some it’s a divorce or a sick child.  For me, it was child abuse, too, just like you.  

That place is hard.  And no matter who else has stood there or when, you are there alone.  The moment is lonely.  Your parents don’t factor in.  What others believe for you doesn’t matter.  It is as if you are in a dark forest surrounded on all sides by looming darkness.  It is one of the frightful scenes out of Alice In Wonderland, or The Wizard of Oz, or Harry Potter.  And you look down at your faith, so little in your hand.  Here and there it catches light from an unknown source like a tiny glittering object, like the resurrection stone or a pair of red sequined shoes.  And you make a choice. 

In the season I made mine, I read a quote that profoundly impacted my life.  It is by Oswald Chambers, and it says: “Unless we can look the darkest, blackest fact full in the face without damaging God’s character, we do not yet know Him.”  

And that’s the thing.  I know Him.  He’s the One who showed up, time and time again, for two child abuse prosecutors who prayed against all odds (and the evidence at hand) for justice, and heard “We, the jury, find the defendant guilty.”  He’s the One who showed up to meetings with abused children when I looked in their faces and said, “I believe you.  You are brave, and you are strong,” and watched their eyes fill with tears.  He’s the One who shows up in the aftermath of evil and helps the underdog and the weakened rebuild with courage and hope.  He’s the One who raises the phoenix from the ashes, the dead from the grave, and the sinner to a second, and third, and infinite chance.  He’s the Hope Against Hope, the Watcher on the Wall, the Holder of the Gate, the Last One Out.  He’s the One who jumps on the grenade, and inspires us to do the same.  He’s the world’s fool, and Heaven’s delight.  Because of Him, grass finds its way up through concrete, spring follows winter, and morning follows night.

Yes, there is night, yes there is evil, yes there is darkness.  But there is also light.  A light catching here and there, dancing and playing over the faith in your hand, calling out your name in a whisper, reminding you that there is goodness and love all around you. 

I learned last week in San Francisco that there are “harbor pilots” whose job is to guide ships through dangerous waters.  They possess unique expertise and detailed knowledge of the local waterway.  They ferry out to an approaching ship and climb aboard for the sole purpose of guiding the ship through the channel safely.  Their role is crucial.  They’ve been there before.  They know where the rocks hide.  They know what is below the surface of the waters.    

Not all of the ships with a harbor pilot make it through.  Having one isn’t a guarantee.  But still, if I were a ship captain approaching Land’s End, I’d want one to climb aboard.  If for nothing else, it would be nice in those final moments to simply not be alone in the dark night.  

  

     

  

    

   

 

Below is an article I wrote in 2006 for a hunters’ publication.  It tells the story of a sheep hunt I went on as my Dad’s sidekick.  The end of that trip was my first time to Seattle.  Now that I am summering here with my kids, I can’t help but remember it.  Since then, I’ve married and had children, and I’m no longer accompanying Dad on his hunting excursions.  I’m grateful to have had occasion to write it down; it’s so fun to look back on.  

            

“This is my third go at Stone sheep out at Scoop Lake,” one man said to the other across the aisle of our Air Canadian flight to Whitehorse, Yukon.  Eavesdropping, my father and I gave each other a momentary look of unease, a look we’d grow increasingly familiar with over the next two weeks.  I could see the words ‘third go’ mixed with certain expletives written in my father’s face.  

The Stone sheep season began in only a few days’ time, and residents and nonresidents alike would scatter across the Canadian wild for a chance at its game.  We, along with most our flight, were on our way to such a sheep hunt.  I was not so sure, however, that we, as most our flight, qualified as “sheep hunters.”  It is true that my father and I are both hunters, and have been all our lives.  I am told that at the age of four when the scent of warm, freshly slain Whitetail poured out of the deer’s open body I exclaimed, “Ah! The smells of Christmas!”  Most definitely, we are hunters.  It is also true that my father took his Dall sheep on a rigorous Alaskan hunt in 1991.  But looking around the plane, I decided much to my alarm that despite these truths, we were not sheep hunters.  

“Sheep hunters” wore flannel over hard, muscular physiques.  Their thick ankles grew boots that seemed chiseled from tree bark and expertly weathered by hell.  Their dense facial hair fell within the shade of greasy baseball caps affixed with logos of farm equipment or gun manufacturers.  They closely resembled the hardworking, rough-riding characters I had seen only on Marlboro billboards and my Brawny paper towel packaging.  Dad and I, at ages sixty and twenty-five respectively, did not seem to fit neatly into this crowd.  

My father had booked our ten-day Stone sheep hunt through Scoop Lake Outfitters.  He planned to pull the trigger while I, official gun bearer, would ensure that he and his rifle were at the top of the mountain with a shot to do so.  The plan was to hunt a piece of Scoop Lake’s 4,000 square mile expanse of Northern Rockies in British Columbia.  Scoop Lake’s reputation for Stone sheep was the topic by rote at safari clubs and hunting expos throughout the world.  A North American legend, its reputation had even survived more recent rumors and publications that its sheep were tapped out and its numbers dwindling.  Dazzled by the prospect of such adventure, Dad and I had basked in the misery-to-come in the way we always anticipated these big trips—intense euphoric expectation that would not fully be replaced by fear until Mom dropped us off at the airport.  When we found ourselves one flight and two airports removed from Mom, that fear had mounted to a breath-catching, copper-tasting secretion in my throat.  

At one of two baggage carousels at the Whitehorse airport the passengers gathered, anxiously shifting weight from one foot to the other like nervous game at a watering hole.  But as gun case after silver gun case spewed from the chute’s belly and bumped noisily along the carousel track, tensions eased and introductory conversations began.  Outfitters’ names were dropped, rifle calibers exchanged, and trophy expectations aired.  It was at this point that Dad and I met Tom and his adult son, each of whom (like my father) booked Stone sheep hunts with Scoop Lake.  Tom was good looking, charismatic, and my father’s age, but any friendship that might have blossomed between them died stillborn the minute Tom declared there was no mountain height he could not climb to reach his sheep.  Tom gave the weight of this statement little time to digest before he produced the photo album evidencing his last Stone sheep— an impressive 42” trophy— that Tom returned this year to trump.  Enduring Tom’s confidence in the face of my own fear felt a bit like eating a plate of cold, day-old eggs.  Every minute we waited for that taxi sent us deeper into Tom’s musings on his sheep hunt, which were mostly of how he created the mountain-climbing, horseback-riding stealth machine that stood before us.  He and his son spent a great deal of time training and researching this very expedition, and already knew which campsite, which guide, and even which mountains they paid to hunt.  Staffed with much less information, Dad and I exchanged our second look of the day, and the fear became a frantic, kinetic tribal dance of grotesque pygmies in my gut.  

The journey from Whitehorse to Scoop Lake is no small feat.  Our arrangements, shared by the other Scoop Lake hunters, included an overnight in Whitehorse, a four-hour car ride to Watson Lake, a floatplane ride from Watson Lake to Scoop Lake headquarters, and lastly a floatplane ride from Scoop Lake to one’s assigned hunting camp.  Despite these hurdles, Scoop Lake’s impressive reputation for Stone sheep rose as the seductive sirens’ song; it held the hunters in eager anticipation of the adventures that lay ahead, time and expense be damned.  And, if reputation alone did not suffice, Scoop Lake’s rich history offered any historian a warm embrace to counter the strains of arrival.  My father was one such hunter. 

When Frank Cooke bought the land west of Kechika River from Skook Davidson for $5,000 in the early 1960s, he scored a reputable and untapped natural resource.  With a mind to guide the area, he recalled in interviews that the land overflowed in sheep, moose, caribou, and goat.  Above a basin between the Turnagain and Colt Lake, Cooke recalled counting as many as sixty-seven rams in one herd, a figure he attributed to the land’s successful wolf-control programs and lack of hunting.  Undoubtedly, my father (thanks to the knowledge derived of books such as these) counted out sixty-seven rams instead of simple sheep each night when head met pillow and eyes closed tightly to dream.

My entire life, Dad has graced each trip with its own reading list, tailored specifically to regions and activities so that wherever we were—diving the Great Barrier or on African safari— we might experience it while reading of deep sea shark attacks or lions who hunt in darkness.  In our family, a trip is truly great only on the other side of perfectly paired book selections to complement the travel.  For this sheep hunt, despite the fact that our floatplanes grimaced at take-off with every pound of weight, Dad’s library lacked nothing.  Brought to fan the flames of fantasy and adventure on our trip, it included accounts of the Klondike, biographies of Frank Cooke, poems by Robert Service, stories by Jack London, Pat McManus’ humor, and countless mountain climbing tales, mostly of Everest.  I dare say that despite the days spent in tiring travel, we arrived at Colt Lake (our assigned hunting camp) as though shot from the slingshot of boyish hope and expectation.  Then we looked around. 

I had scarcely noticed where it was they left us for all the distraction of plane noise, struggles with luggage, and the fierce handshakes of our hunting guide and horse wrangler.  But as the sounds of our Beaver faded around the mountain I became acutely aware that with it went the world and before me lay a dispiriting sight: 350 degrees or more of desolate mountain, valley, and lake, and then a sliver of habitation—a wooden plank leading to a 15-foot shack, a horse corral, a shed, and an outhouse.  Before me lay the famous and historic Colt Lake camp.  

The shack housed our kitchen and sleeping quarters.  Once inside I was told to pick a bunk, and then if hungry, to make a plate.  The back of the cabin partitioned from the kitchen and dining area held four bunks, two up and two below.  Each bunk owned its own mattress of yellow foam turned brown with age and splotched with mysterious and not so mysterious stains.  A standing shower in one corner was immediately promising, but I discovered its floor was used for storage and its shower bag was shriveled from disuse.  Half naked women mocked me from the cardboard walls on which they were tacked.  I arranged my sleeping bag so as to touch the foam as minimally as possible, particularly the precarious three-inch wooden border where dirt and human discard reminded me just how historic Colt Lake truly was.  At this, I decided to inventory lunch. 

Two steps later I had joined them at our buffet, which I studied with a feigned air of satisfaction.  A loaf of mystery meat, recently sliced, sat with its congealed outer layer of brackish jelly that still bore the imprint of the can that birthed it.  There was a sandwich spread of mayonnaise dotted with green and red flecks, white bread, and Tang to wash it down.  Over lunch our hunting guide and wrangler discussed the persistent mice problem.  I lost a few words over the white noise of the hand-held trucker’s radio connecting us to others, but I caught more of the conversation than I would have liked.  In my sleeping bag that night with the radio’s ccrr ccccrrrr to set the mood, I conversed with my nerves on waking early, riding horseback and climbing mountains.  

The next afternoon, our horse wrangler sat clutching a broken arm waiting for his medical evacuation by floatplane.  This injury, sustained at the wild temperament of his horse, catapulted the conversations with myself to screaming fits inside my head.  In all my naivety, I pictured the horse wrangler to be the horse whisperer—the one who would guide the reigns of my steed as we negotiated difficult terrain.  As I watched him disappear around the mountain only one day after my arrival, my heart sank.  A calm, simple, ageless hunting guide by the name of Bob bore complete responsibility for us now.  

Bob played by the book.  Unfortunately, the book demanded that we, as guided hunters, abide by stricter standards than resident hunters.  Our ram must not only be a legal sheep by way of trophy size, but it must be aged at eight years.  Aging Stone sheep requires close enough proximity to count the rings on the horns.  This closeness proved to be as elusive as the Bongo, and as mysterious.  

I came to learn that the sheep hunt is a game of patience unlike rattling Whitetail or hunting from blinds.  It sucks the very marrow from the hunter’s bones.  To sheep hunt means to rise early, mount up, and ascend mountains on horseback in cold rain.  This might take an hour or three before you dismount and continue climbing on foot.  Several hundred feet in elevation later, the hunter sits and “glasses,” which means to scan the mountainsides using binocular and spotting scope.  It is difficult for the untrained eye to find anything in the crags and rocks.  After hours, and now soaked through to skin, the guide may find Stone sheep.  At this, the hunter’s heart flutters and subsides as he endures perhaps another hour in the evaluation of the Stone sheep, most likely spotted on a mountain ledge a thousand yards away.  The curl of the horn is determined ‘legal’ or ‘not legal’.  It is at this juncture that the guide and hunter discuss the best way to get closer to the sheep.  The hunter’s heart begins to sink as he realizes the futility of any such attempt.  

Stone sheep position themselves with maximum visibility to detect a predators’ approach from great distance, complete with escape routes up and over mountains and the wind in their favor.  The best and most promising route always requires a great deal of the hunter’s physical aptitude as well as time.  Should the hunter have the ability and even the heart to trek his way onward, he often finds he does not have the time, as the entire process has pushed him right up against dusk.  And as the hunter mounts his horse and begins the procession home, he cannot take solace in the thought of returning first thing in the morning, because it is rare for Stone sheep to hold patterns or to stay where yesterday found them.  And so the hunter returns to his shack to dry his clothes and hope tomorrow is better than the day before.  

On our third day, we finally spotted a legal ram, but we waited the afternoon in ambush and nothing came of it.  On two other occasions, we found sheep that were impossible to reach or not large enough to hunt.  We took several excursions, all of which felt like blind stabs into sheep country.  On one occasion we had a shot at a full curl sheep, but from a distance that did not allow us to age it.  Our hunting guide was the type of hunter who loved hunting for its communion with the outdoors and not for the blood lust that drove him to hunger for the kill.  This greatly enabled his patience, but ultimately made him indifferent to the progress of each day: namely, whether or not we killed a sheep.  

Most hunters feed on the misery of the hunt.  We prize our trophies not for trophy’s sake alone, but for the agony endured to win it.  The price one pays to pull the trigger is part of the allure.  Each species taken represents a victory over weather, timing, fatigue, expense and self-pity.  And yet, to transcend the misery the hunter needs the heart-pounding lust for blood that rises at the closeness of the hunted – at the prospect of the kill.  It was this hope that could not survive at Scoop Lake. 

Our circumstance was unique.  We were not trained or experienced sheep hunters.  Our hunting guide lacked intensity, as well as knowledge of our particular hunting camp and its surrounding land.  And yet, all these variables do not excuse how few sheep – only one legal sheep – we saw while on this trip.  When reunited with Tom and his son, we learned they too felt disappointed at the surprising absence of game and were frustrated at the process.  The books that spoke of sixty-seven rams now read as a history of a land no longer meeting the quota its reputation created.  Frustration had replaced our fear, and the misery that met us did not tuck us in cozily at night with warm thoughts of home, but rather drove us mad. 

As Dad and I sat afterward over coffee in Seattle, I knew that as with all miserable trips, I would revere the misery over time.  Weeks would separate me from the reality of the cold rain and the moldy sandwiches.  I would remember the smell of my horse, the warmth of a hot chocolate mug in my hand, the sweet taste of mountain lake water and the sound of the storms on our tin roof.  I would always adore the time with Dad—laughter turning to tears in the suffering of it.  And as always, I will sign up for the next adventure.  But in the hunt there is always the hunger, and no hunter should endure misery only to remain sheepless in Seattle.  

 

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