Devotions

The mountain man upon my shelf,

Ceramic, painted by myself.

I felt creative as an elf.

I made it for my dad,

But he succumbed to his ill health.

The mountain man is sad.

Provision

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Timothy 5:8)

Shortly after my husband and I were married in 1979, the big thing was ceramics. You went to classes and they taught you how to pick the greenware, they fired it in the kiln and then taught you how to paint it. Some of the glazes needed fired again, but some just had some kind of finish or wash put on it and didn’t need refiring.

When I first started classes, I spied the mountain man that reminded me of my dad, and thought it would be a long time coming before I could make it look half-way decent. However, the shop owner assured me that, with just a few lessons, I could do it. And sure enough, she taught me how to paint the details in eyes, make hair and beard look hairy, and showed me which wash to use to bring out the creases and shadows to make him more three dimensional. He stands about twelve inches high, has his hands rested on a rifle and his leg is bent with his foot supported on a stump. He wears brown, fringed leather.

Dad didn’t quite dress like the mountain man. He usually wore flannel shirts, work pants, and a grayish-green billed cap. He did roam the hills of Pennsylvania with a shot gun since the age of nine. I couldn’t imagine handing my nine-year-old a shot gun and let him roam the woods, but back then the boys were well trained to handle rifles and hunt for squirrel, rabbit and deer, which his family lived on. Later, that’s what my four sisters and I lived on too, plus fresh-caught trout and bass, and garden-grown veggies and fruit and nuts grown wild on our property.

So, I gave Dad the mountain man for Christmas. He never said if he liked it or not. He wasn’t one to express things like that. But it sat on his dresser until the day he died in 1999. So almost twenty years later the mountain man returned to me.

The mountain man speaks of my dad who loved to hunt and fish and worked hard at a steel mill, and when he came home, he worked hard in the yard and garden. It speaks of love he had for his family. And it speaks of how times have changed. Now, we find the thought of eating squirrels and rabbits slightly revolting, though it tasted good and served its purposes at the time. I think of the nine-year-old boy toting his rifle and wonder if maybe we’re missing it in these days of not teaching our children more about hard work and responsibility. Also, when I think of the mountain man, I think that if we can’t do something we want to do, we can usually learn, and usually easier than we suspect. Even Jesus had to learn and grow when he came to Earth.

Recommended Reading: Luke 2:41-52, Galatians 6:1-10

Prayer: Father, help us to work hard to take care of our families and extend Your love to others as well. Please grant us creative ideas to do the work that You would have us to do. Give us boldness to take risks and step out in faith, to learn and grow, and become the people You desire us to be.