A few years ago, when I had just moved back from Hawaii, I was staying at my parent’s small country house in Tennessee as I was battling through the episodes of my bipolar disorder. At that time, I made a habit of running to a nearby farm where a never-changing scenery of four beautiful horses was always unfolding. It was one of the few stabilities I could rely on at that time. Last time I saw those horses was in 2013 and I have no doubt that they are still on that Tennessee country field running around or getting warm in a stable. I wrote about those horses in the post titled Hello. Goodbye.
Few years later, I am now looking forward to living on a land with running horses and a pony. The news came on Thursday that our offer on a land was accepted. It’s a beautiful flat land somewhere in the Virginian country village where the horses will be right at home. It’s a perfect setting for someone with a bipolar disorder past. Perfect for someone who works in a busy IT lab around the computers and data servers all day. Perfect for a little baby who will no doubt dream of riding her own pony pretty soon. It will be perfect because I won’t have to run to the farm anymore to see those healing horses. They will be right out my windows.
I try to recount whether I secretly prayed for a house like that farm house with horses on its vast land in Tennessee. It is definitely a fantasy of mine to live on a land where horses roam. I love watching The Pioneer Woman on Food channel. Her prairie life surely inspires me although I am well aware that I have a very unbalanced perspective when it comes to Ree Drummond and her almost-too-happy fairy tale life. I fantasized but I never verbally prayed to God for a prairie life style. There are other pressing issues that I need to address with God.
But this secret desire of mine is nonetheless coming into full fruition and that night, my heart was full of gratitude for the Lord has been tremendously generous with me lately. When I finally sat down at my desk to have some quiet time of Lectio Divina, I was stunned to discover the day’s portion of my Catholic reading was so apt to my day’s event. God was talking about the LAND!
Deuteronomy 30:15-20 consists of Moses’s urgent prodding to his people before they enter the promised land: Choose to follow God’s ways or face death on the new land that God is giving you.
There two paths ahead.
- “Loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees” will lead the people of Israel to “live and grow numerous, and the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy” (Deu 30:16).
- If “you turn away your hearts and will not listen,
but are led astray and adore and serve other gods”, you will “perish” and “will not have a long life on the land” (Deu 30:17).
It could not have been written any clearer than this. God was reminding me, once again, of the blessing He was bestowing on us, to my new family. God was also warning me that He can always take away His blessing and that we could only parish on this new land. How we live right now will determine not only the future of our generation but the generations to come after. This is something serious. This is something I shall not easily disregard.
It’s easy to forget that God has all the power and choices. It’s ultimately God that holds the final hand. “Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain” (Psalm 127:1, NIV). But when he is watching over, when He becomes your own personal life guard… Oh what joy awaits before us.
Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
– Psalm 37: 3-4
lilyboat 