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Friday, November 25, 2011

I Live

in Bucks County. An interesting name for a county and there is a reason for the specificity of my location in this post.

Here's the official story:
"Founded in 1682 by William Penn, Bucks County has had a long and distinguished history. Penn named the county after Buckinghamshire, the Penn family home in Englandpost." BucksCounty.org

Here's my unofficial story:
Named because we have lots of deer. I mean even one of our local high schools' mascot is Bucks (meaning deer, not money;)

We've lived in Bucks County for 16 years. We have seen a lot of deer running through fields, standing along roadways, and unfortunately dead along roadways too.

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It was a long week leading up to Thanksgiving. I'd been a bit weepy, sad, numb, and couldn't come up with an update to my list of counting toward one thousand gifts. I was in a spiritual / emotional slump. Gray days with rain from drizzle to downpours obviously hadn't improved my mental state.

After a long eight hours of work on Wednesday, my excitement started to build toward: Thanksgiving and four days off, only being responsible for a sidedish at my sister-in-law's house, and our son already being at our house. I wished everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and left work with a bit of a bounce in my step.

I had two errands to run and while driving 40 miles an hour on a busy road, with cars in front of me and behind me and oncoming traffic just as steady, something hit my passenger door and actually rocked my van!

I drove about 100 feet and pulled into a convenience store parking lot to survey the damage. The traffic pattern never changed, cars weren't stopping, no dodging or weaving, and I noticed the truck that was behind me just zoomed on by where I was parked. I felt confusion, fear, and after seeing the damage, sadness.

I drove back to where it had happend. Nothing in the road or near the road. Traffic moving as usual.

Darn deer.

I'm hopeful that it was just stunned and ran off with a slight hangover. I don't know.

Yet after a week of a blah and weary attitude, I realized that during the hard eucharisteo of a damaged vehicle: My van was still drive-able and I wasn't physically injured. Pretty amazing once I started thinking about it.



I am thankful that the damage is what it is and thank God for his protection.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we  know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.
Romans 5:3-6 (NLT)


What do you think?

1 comment:

  1. I wanted to say that your life is similar to mine. I grew up in PA, and now live in Texas, am an empty nester and have one grandchild:)
    I hate deer in the highways. My BIL was killed by one a few years ago and now that I live here in Texas I worry about them again--never saw any in our ten years in Fl but have seen a few already from being here. Stay careful!

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