The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want (More)

I step out onto the porch and into a bejeweled world of bowed pine boughs making a canopy over my head courtesy of the ice storm that came when I was sleeping. Ice encrusted grass crunches under foot as I step carefully on the pathway I take each day through the farm.

So much dangerous beauty spreads out like an ice blanket, beckoning me to step out. It’s easy to be lulled into the everydayness of life and not see the danger just underneath: a fall, a slide into a building or fence, even frostbite if I linger too long.

My sheep beckon me to bring breakfast. Quickly. And the rhythm of my life automatically plays as it has for 22 years. Seasons come and go, crisis ebbs and flows, but nothing really changes for my sheep.

Wooly faces turn gratefully upward waiting for hay, unaware of the sacrifice it takes to make the icy trek. They care only about that mouth full of rich green hay. Of sustenance, of comfort, of a safe place to be. How I wish I were more like them, to be satisfied with the little I truly need instead of wanting more and better and different.

There are many dangerously icy things in my life that are just as destructive to my soul as a slip on icy grass is to my physical body. These dangers subtly beckon when I am sleeping: complacency, dissatisfaction, envy, anger, jealousy, pride, pettiness, fear. Sometimes I wake to find them still there and ruminate on them throughout the day, making me anything but thankful for the one wonderful imperfectly beautiful difficult blessed life I have. The life I have chosen.

In those times I turn my face gratefully Heavenward to my Good Shepherd Who not only knows my true needs but provides them bountifully. And once again I am satisfied with what I really need and take my focus off the bejeweled things I think I want — more and better and different.

The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want (more).

Jackie Deems copyright 2022