I saw a post on here the other day for "The one that got away"...It got me to thinking about my own personal story. It is one that goes back about 5 years ago, and the events that happened really made me think about how God has a plan for each of our lives. Five years ago, a friend and I gained permission to hunt a piece of property. It was a large track of land, with rolling hills and bluffs. Season had ended just a couple months earlier and we still had deer on the brain. We were really excited about the prospect of hunting the new property, and in our excitment we decided to go check it out. We walked all over the property that day...It was amazing. As we walked we had found a couple sheds, and it was shaping up to be a day to remember. We had decided to head home, and as we were leaving something happened that was going to make the next couple weeks very interesting. Just as we began to leave the field that we had parked in, the truck became unexpectedly lop sided. We quickly jumped out of the vehicle to find both of the tires were flat on one side. Thinking we had run over a sharp stick, I began to walk the tracks of our vehicle to find the culpret. What I found was a of a shed sticking up out of the ground...as I began to pull it up, I hardly realized the magnitude of that antler. It was very large, but the size of the antler was greatly reduced by the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere with two flat tires on our truck. We were blessed by a local neighbor who saw our situation and helped us to a local tire shop. While waiting on the tires, the man began to share with us things that were going on in his life. As my friend and I saw the hurt this man was dealing with, we began to share the gospel with him. We told him about the importance of a relationship with the Lord, and let him know that we would help him in anyway possible. He was a great help to us that day, and although he wasn't ready to make a decision, we were very glad to have had the opportunity to plant the seed. It was a whole week before we would make it to that property again...We knew the antler we found was from a giant, and we decided the next saturday was the day we would search for the other side to the huge rack. We arrived with high expectations, but we knew the odds for success were slim. We had been looking for about 5 minutes when I saw my friend coming around the bend with what looked like was an antler...Boy was it ever. We had found both sides of what was a World Class buck...But the story doesn't end there. As we were heading home, we were speechless at the very fact that we had found both sides to this majestic animal. We gave thanks to the Lord, and the joy we were feeling was nothing short of amazing...But what happened next quickly brought us back to reality. We turned the corner of an old country road to see a sight that neither of us could quite distinguish. It looked to be an abandoned 4 wheeler, but as we got closer, we noticed there was a young man under the ATV. He had appearently been thrown off, only to have the 4 wheeler run him over. We quickly called an ambulance and did our best to revive the boy. It was only a few hours later that the boy died, and in doing so, his organs were responsible for saving the lives of 4 other children. We were told later that had we not found him when were did, that his organs would not have been useable... I say all of this to say that God's timing and plans are an awesome thing. We see simple events as mere chance, but they are so much more. Jeremiah 29 tells us that God has a plan for each and everyone of us...We need to simply submit to him. Oh Yeah, the antlers...they scored 218 7/8 with a 20" spread. We only saw the deer one time...He was at 40 yards and he was as amazing as every dream that I had had of him. And that's my story of the one that got away...
TH---thanks for the post, it gets my brain thinking pretty hard. Best of luck to you and god bless that kid that died.
