This past New Year’s Day seemed to promise many good things
for 2016. I actually worked that day, because my parents-in-law had visited for
Christmas—a good thing—and I needed to make up some hours.
It was a beautiful, chilly morning—and the first thing I did
was shoot three jackrabbits in the hay bale stack yard above my dad’s house.
The big hares had been crawling all over for weeks, and I finally had remembered
to bring my little Heritage Arms .22 revolver, with its magnum cylinder. I also
remembered to hold steady enough to make some good shots at 25 or 30 yards—for
as any marksman knows, aiming with handguns is much more delicate than aiming
with rifles.
I have never liked killing animals just for the sake of
killing. I like to hunt for meat and as a great outdoors activity. And I like
to shoot pests like jackrabbits. They are no good for eating, but they consume
our hay and defecate on it—not caring, of course, that it is supposed to be for
our Black Angus cows during the long Montana winters. Plus, while cute little
cottontails also run freely on our ranch, jackrabbits are big and ugly.
Anyway, hunting, praising God for 2015, and talking with Him
about 2016 were the best parts of the day. Late that evening I got the sad news
that my godfather had died several hours earlier.
At another time, I hope to post about him—as I loved and
respected him tremendously. For now, let it suffice that I am overwhelmingly sure
he has gone “into
the real Narnia through the Door,” to cite his favorite author C.S. Lewis
in The Last Battle. He went there to
be with, and because of his deep faith in, his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
What a start to the New Year!
