Well, as you wait in the bitter cold and begin to forget what it is like to feel tips of toes and lobes of ears, you question such spontaneous brilliance. There is so much work waiting, stacks of papers under mugs filled with coffee to get you through it all, but you remember your family just finished encouraging you to refresh yourself. But be honest, you feel a little guilty for these desires to get out in the woods, do you not? So you lay it all on your Lord, and ask Him to quiet your soul as you are still in His beautiful nature.

Soon, you cannot believe your luck when a deer comes out to feed in the meadow. Well, maybe you can - the doe is young and definitely not a shooter. That heart of yours still beats wildly. It thumps from one side of your cardio-thoracic cavity to the other, walloping around like a hard water balloon, and you smile. What a way to get a thrill! You feel the cleansing renewal, an indescribable gift.

Two more deer leave dense cover for the open and you quickly size them up and decide to hold off. As soon as you have several deer to keep your attention and occupy your thoughts, you hear a twig snap and catch a young buck pulling a tender shoot of grass from the earth behind you. The pattern continues as you realize that he also is too small to take, and it gets trickier as more deer appear. Many eyes that are searching for movement surround you and you become conscious of the motion of your chest. Within moments, over a dozen deer form a small herd and the boss doe in the middle is really something to behold. She is old, wise, and graying around her face. Antlers or no antlers, she is a trophy.

The doe stays in the middle, surrounded by others. Tawny bodies coalesce into one brown blob. The deer steps out and you take the safety off, but the old girl is restless and scoots back behind another member of the herd. She pins her ears at one youngster and takes a disciplinary bite at its face. Then the doe rears over the other, bringing her sharp hoof down on the deer’s back. You realize her dominance and respect her even more.

As if on cue, all the others distance themselves from her, conveniently creating a shooting lane for you as the doe quarters away from you. You take a breath, exhale, and squeeze the trigger. The doe leaps and crashes at the edge of the woods and the others in the herd make a hasty exit. Feeling good about the shot, you walk to her and see her head still up. Two more shots are fired before she is up and gone. Wishing not to push her deeper into the forest, you hold off on tracking her until the morning. If she crosses the creek into thick stuff, your chances are sheerly nothing. It is against every bone in your body and the little voice that screams Go now and find her! But experience asks you to be patient and common sense reassures you that freezing temperatures will keep the meat fresh if you find and dress her at dawn.

As soon as the sun creeps up over the horizon, you are back where you started, albeit weary from a night of praying and recollecting the chain of events. You parallel the creek and soon see your doe down, and poke her with the barrel of your rifle to confirm that she is dead. She is and you realize that the first shot was the only to make contact, perfectly into the vitals. You drop to your knees in gratitude. Trusting in God is worth it-always.