Placed Upon the Land's Breast

Provacative and the only way I can describe it.

I grew up in a symbiotic relationship to the land.  I'm part of the land the land is part of me.

One would think I grew up in a hippie commune.  When it comes down to it ranchers, cowboys and hippies have some crazy commonalities.  Of course, my Dad was extremely unconventional and progressive for his time. (They did not seem to have much in common, when I brought my hippie husband home to meet my Marlboro man Dad.)

When I moved off the land to follow the call I knew God has placed on my heart...I felt unplugged.  It wasn't just the homesickness and missing people.  I missed my land.  The whisper of the grasses and the feeling before a weather change.  The comfort of the prairie.  

Who could understand my need to be outside to be comforted or a breeze to spark my imagination?

I was odd.  I was comforted by the ebbs and flow of the land and I needed to stay in touch with it.

The day I was going to quit and I climbed out of the prayer loft window on the 4th floor to sit on the roof for the 100th time, God spoke with me.  

He always knew where to find me, where I would be still and listening.  

He asked if I remembered who created the land and the universe?  If I thought the one who created it, was disconnected from it?  

It was God who created, nurtured and loved each small sparrow and blade of grass and hair on my head.  And if He could create that, couldn't He do something within my heart and life? 

The Bible says even creation is groaning and calling out for Him.  The trees and the rocks.  The birds and the wind know Him.  

 Is my place only on the land on one ranch in South Dakota?  Was the land big enough to be part of me wherever I went?  To be carried with?

My tears mixed with the night breeze.  God is a big God.  Bigger than land, culture, and is not tied to one particular place.  He sees the connections, He made them.  

It was Him who placed me on the land to heal me and to grow me.  

The land with its seasons, growth, death and connections educated me.  

He placed me on the lands' breast to be nurtured and held and a part of something bigger than myself.  

To calm me and make me still and able to listen.  

To give me a secure base.  An attachment.

To make me feel safe, calm my anxious heart and to learn.  To wait upon. And finally...

Finally, to let go and to fully lean on Him. And He gave me His Word.

Isaiah 40:12-31 (The Message)

Who has scooped up the ocean in his two hands, or measured the sky between his thumb and little finger, 

Who has put all the earth's dirt in one of his baskets, weighed each mountain and hill?  

Who could ever have told God what to do or taught him his business?  

What expert would he have gone to for advice, what school would he attend to learn justice? What god do you suppose might have taught him what he knows, showed him how things work?  

Why, the nations are but a drop in a bucket, a mere smudge on a window. Watch him sweep up the islands like so much dust off the floor!  

There aren't enough trees in Lebanon nor enough animals in those vast forests to furnish adequate fuel and offerings for his worship.  

All the nations add up to simply nothing before him - less than nothing is more like it. A minus.  

So who even comes close to being like God? To whom or what can you compare him? 

Some no-god idol? Ridiculous! It's made in a workshop, cast in bronze, Given a thin veneer of gold, and draped with silver filigree.  

Or, perhaps someone will select a fine wood - olive wood, say - that won't rot, Then hire a woodcarver to make a no-god, giving special care to its base so it won't tip over!  

Have you not been paying attention? Have you not been listening? Haven't you heard these stories all your life? 

Don't you understand the foundation of all things?  

God sits high above the round ball of earth. The people look like mere ants. He stretches out the skies like a canvas - yes, like a tent canvas to live under.  

He ignores what all the princes say and do. The rulers of the earth count for nothing.  

Princes and rulers don't amount to much. Like seeds barely rooted, just sprouted, They shrivel when God blows on them. Like flecks of chaff, they're gone with the wind. 

"So - who is like me? Who holds a candle to me?" says The Holy. 

 Look at the night skies: Who do you think made all this? 

Who marches this army of stars out each night, counts them off, calls each by name - so magnificent! so powerful! - and never overlooks a single one?  

Why would you ever complain, O Jacob, or, whine, Israel, saying, "God has lost track of me. He doesn't care what happens to me"?  

Don't you know anything? Haven't you been listening? 

God doesn't come and go. God lasts. He's Creator of all you can see or imagine. He doesn't get tired out, doesn't pause to catch his breath. And he knows everything, inside and out.  

He energizes those who get tired, gives fresh strength to dropouts.  

For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall.  

 But those who wait upon God get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles, They run and don't get tired, they walk and don't lag behind.