Thicket

I grew up in a Tudor-style home on a half-acre wonderland. The house sat on a hill, and the rainbow-shaped driveway launched sledders with delight. Purple clematis covered the wall by the garage door. Sunny forsythia brightly marked one corner of the lot. Thick tree trunks held up Dad’s Mexican hammocks and a homemade swing with the longest rope ever. A patio off the walkout basement hugged a lilac bush and a brick wall. The brick wall was perfect for smashing rocks into dust; dust was then relocated inside acorn caps for our store of magic potions. There was flat lawn for playing ball, and incline for slipping and sliding. Mom manually watered every inch of green by dragging the hose to and fro; a yellow margarine tub measured the sprinkler’s inches of moisture. Grow boxes built from railroad ties hosted an annual exhibit of tomatoes and banana peppers. Creepy crawlies hid in cord after cord of stacked firewood. One tree with slick white bark was my eagle’s nest and could be climbed to the tippy top, allowing me to see when Dad’s car was turning right onto our street after work. Crouching in the redbud afforded glimpses of neighbor Paul’s colorful koi. Pollyanna was the tree so big she was always base for hide and seek. When men from church came with chainsaws to cut her down we counted the rings on her raw remainder. She was ancient.

Yes, the yard at 405 Woodridge Drive was a manicured paradise except for one section: the thicket.

The thicket was the armpit of our yard; the untamed and uncultivated back corner reserved for lawn clippings and green waste. It housed pokey weeds, tangly vines, and a damp, organic smell fitting for nature's morgue. The stump that stood in the middle of the thicket could only be reached on a dare. Retrieving balls and frisbees from the thicket was like playing Russian roulette against imagined land mines: every step into that squishy mound of dead grass could hit a coiled copperhead or wild-eyed critter with rabies hungry for a chunk of my leg. The thicket was the worst.

This is why any time I study or hear about Abraham and Isaac—you know, the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his beloved son after all those years of waiting—I am drawn to a small phrase at the end. The knife was raised, Abraham withheld nothing from God, and the angel called it off in the nick of time. Proven and relieved, Abraham looked and beheld “a ram caught in the thicket by his horns” (Genesis 22:13). The ram was offered as a sacrifice instead; the ram pointed to Jesus Christ and the sacrifice He would make for all mankind centuries later.

I know the ram’s horns were probably caught in the middle eastern version of scrub oaks, but when I read the word thicket, I picture Missouri, and the scary plot of my childhood world. I picture a ram caught there, and it still works…because Christ is in that thicket, too.

One minute life is grand—you’re in the yard playing croquet, chasing butterflies, and painting a box turtle’s shell with a pot of nail polish. One misstep later you’re in the thicket and all that thickets entail: fear, remorse, hopelessness. The worst thing about the thicket is how close you are to all the happiness you knew; you can see where you were and how good it was. How did a couple of clumsy steps change everything? How did I end up in the thicket? Let me back onto the emerald lawn beneath the glow of strung Edison bulbs! Let me inhale lilac again! Push me so high on the swing my tummy flips!

As one who skipped through yard this year and came out dripping with milk and honey—family reunited, two trips to Paris, my 25th wedding anniversary, more wallpaper pasted in the house, and so much hiking I required new shoes—I have also spent unexpected and all-time lows in the thicket. All I can say is that the ram IS in the thicket, and what has meant the most to me this year is knowing He is isn't there because He is stuck, He is there because I am.

There is no friend more loyal than the Savior. He will not leave us alone, be it in Eden or the thicket.

*For stoic and poetic Heater, who just rode camels after finishing chemo. RRR!

The boys checked a book out of the local library called Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman. After reading it one time I ordered it hardcover on Amazon. Filled with hedgehogs, ferns, ocean waves and more, one line reads, “A spiral is a strong shape. Its outer curves protect what’s inside. It knows how to defend itself.” On the defending page there are two rams head butting, and the index at the end of the story explains, “The spiral horns of a male merino sheep absorb the impact of the tremendous pounding blows they receive when fighting other males.” I realized Christ is the ram that has forever defended us by absorbing our pain (and everything else) in his spiraled horns (His Atonement) to protect what is inside of him (godly and infinite love for us). Spirals can go on forever. “Love without end.”

Greg graduated from Rampart High School; he was a Rampart Ram. Sadly, his letter jacket only has a letter R on it—no sheep’s head with magnificent spiraled horns. He is very rammy in the way he tries to fortify me.