Awaking the second morning of a stay in Colorado to a fresh layer of snow, we insulated ourselves against the cold and ventured out like Texas rubes to explore the vast and pristine wilderness of our cabin’s mountainside driveway. It is actually more impressive and beautiful than it sounds. While ambling about, Jonathan (my son-in-law) pointed out a fresh set of tracks in the snow which, although I thought they were large enough to belong to a surprisingly extant pterodactyl, he identified as belonging to a wild turkey. I’ve seen few enough wild turkeys, and the imprints in snow were impressive enough, that I was still motivated to snap a picture of the tracks and send them to the friend letting us use his cabin.
You can imagine how silly I felt when the next morning I opened the door to find at least 20 wild turkeys ambling along the same path marked by that one bird’s tracks. It sounds like an odd thing to say about turkeys, but they really were beautiful. Jonathan had enough wits about him to run to the camera already outside on a tripod, redirect it to the parade, and snap a few pictures.
The week after that trip, I saw a former student on a national news network advocating for the value of every human life. Don’t misunderstand, every testimony is important, and every faithful act of service significant. But that student’s appearance reminded me both how grateful I am that we get to make our beautiful set of tracks in the snow, and how prayerful we ought to be that those we have the opportunity to influence make an even far greater and more gracious spectacle of truth.
May we lay down good tracks this week, and may those coming behind us make an incredible show of the truths entrusted to all of us.