Old Bones

By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return. Genesis 3:19 NLT

One of the reasons I never tire of hiking in the mountains is I never know what I may find. When I do stumble across interesting things from the past, I call them treasures (See Mountain Treasures, Treasure Hunt).

Not long ago, Cosmos, our newfound yellow lab from the animal shelter, and I came across two freshly shed antlers. This made an already good day in the mountains into an extra good one. These antlers were fresh, shed just a few weeks prior to our finding them. As I’ve mentioned before, out of all the billions of people on earth, I was probably the first person on the planet to touch them. The antler sheds were dropped from deer which were probably a couple years old, still young, and not yet in their prime.

Then Cosmos and I came upon this very old bone, half-covered in moss and pine needles. In the particular place we were hiking, and by the sheer size of the bone, I’d guess it once was very functional for a pretty big moose. I had often seen a moose near this area several years ago, back when Moondog and I spent countless hours exploring this small part of a vast expanse of mountains.

Much to my sorrow, Moondog’s time on this earth is over as he has since passed on from this life. So too with Stardog, with whom I also enjoyed hiking many hours in this area (See Joy and Peace).

Now I hike with Cosmos, who from all initial indications, is going to be just as much fun and satisfying to hike with as were Moon and Stardog. Yet as the above Scripture tells us, I know that someday he, and I as well, will take our last hike in these mountains. And like this old bone pictured above, we too will return to the dust.

If you’ll notice in the picture, even now new life is growing from this old, dead bone. I like that. And that’s just in the physical world of nature around us. Jesus promised that if we believe in Him, we will never die. I like that even more. Not sure how something like that can happen to you? See Got God?

Hope you have a great day.