Stuck

 January 21, 2021

In her latest email blog, Ann Voskamp tells of her husband, whom she calls “the farmer,”  as he invited her to ride their 4-wheeler with him out to the river. She writes, “Just south of this grove of gnarled apple trees, huddled close in the January winds, the field wasn’t frozen a solid safe, but was actually this soggy bog under an unsuspecting cloak of snow. Which meant that?My farming man and I went down like a stone in a winter quicksand. Yeah: mud spinning up and ATV sinking down in a muck sea and there we were:

“In the beginning of a new year, with all its new goals and plans and resolutions, already kinda mired down and — stuck. You know that of which I speak?”

She relates how he cabled the ATV’s winch to an apple tree, revved the motor, and suddenly they popped free. Off again they went. She leaned close and said, “You just think you can go anywhere now, do anything, just because you’ve got a winch on the front of this thing, don’t you?”

His response? “Absolutely not. Because look around you: You can only get unstuck if you’re close to a tree.”

She thought about this, reflecting that there is no getting out of any mire without an anchor. There is no hauling out of muddy messes without the Tree of Christ. She went on to talk about everything that’s changed this past year, and how we’ve gotten stuck, and how there’s no getting out unless we’re close to the Tree and the Christ who hung from it so we could climb out of the mire and head into the future that awaits us.

Those on the Left are rejoicing today, while those on the Right are seeing the imminent demise of our country. I certainly don’t know what the future holds, but I have seen a lot of people getting stuck, and not just those who voted for Trump. Some Biden supporters have allowed their disdain for Trump to get inside them, obsessed with erasing even his memory. They are stuck. It’s the same for many of us impacted by the coronavirus. We’re stuck in the way things used to be, bristle at the words “new normal,” and see only dark days ahead. We’ll never get unstuck by revving our engines and spinning our wheels. We need the Tree as an anchor to pull ourselves free from the morass in which we find ourselves.

I’m finding it more and more necessary to anchor myself to the Tree. Only the roots of the Cross go deep enough to hold firm when I’m stuck. So tonight, as every night, I call upon the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as I firmly anchor my soul, prayerfully searching the Scriptures. When I do this, the muck and mud that have seized hold of me begin to give way and I rise from the bog and once more fly across the fields of God’s grace and mercy into the future he has prepared for all who love him and call upon his name.