Jumping Inside Buckets

The sugar cane stalks were standing leaned against the front porch wall next to a five gallon bucket quarter filled with pecans picked up from the trees here on the farm.   Apparently, what happened was that the little fella crawled up the stalks of cane and with visions of being a trapeze artist in his head made a leap into what seemed to be the mother lode of food.  But, the bucket was only a death trap.  When I heard the tiny field mouse he was doing vertical leaps up from the pecans trying to reach the top of the bucket, but always sliding back down into those pecans.  After watching a moment or two, I turned the bucket on its side and watched him scamper away to the rest of of his life.     

I guess you could call me his deliverer.  We all need deliverers from time to time.  Some of the messes into which we get are of our making, some come because we think life might be better in the bucket, and some come to us in the indiscriminate way that speaks of life happening.  Regardless of the predicament in which we get caught, having someone to help us is such a blessed thing.  Recently, in some times of difficulty I have had some friends and neighbors help me get on my feet again.   And I am grateful for their delivering kindness.   

And, of course, when we think of being delivered, we always think of the Deliverer in our life.  God is not one to leave us in the midst of our troubles though sometimes we are quick to tell Him that such is what He seems to be doing.  The truth is far from being abandoned.  God is always out there working in our lives to get us out the buckets from which there seems to be no escape.  And when I find myself like the tiny mouse unable to help myself and not hopeful that God is going to show, I remind myself that He has been faithful in presence and help and care and deliverance in days past which finally begins to get me back on the road of hope once again.