My Promise

January 5, 2020 — Laura House

For his whole life, he had dreamed of having a BB gun. I say his “whole life” but he was still a little guy. The requests for this item actually began around age five, after seeing his older cousins, and they resurfaced every Christmas. Thinking I was safe in my answer, I confidently stated, “If we ever live on a farm or out in the country, you can have a BB gun.”  That seemed logical and reasonable to Nathan, so the asking ended for a couple of years. But when he was ten years old, we moved to a farm.

I was so excited and grateful to be back in the country, a place where my children could spend their days building forts, enjoying bonfires with friends, playing with the cats, exploring, making a museum in the barn with artifacts found around the property, tending a garden, studying from the front porch swing, and making movies with friends and cousins. The thought of BB guns never entered my mind.

But someone else did remember. Shortly after moving in, he dropped the bomb. “Mom! Now I can have a BB gun!”

My mind raced to find a reply that could honor my promise without actually delivering a BB gun, but I could find no solution to accomplish that. So, just like Ralphie in “The Christmas Story,” Nathan got his BB gun, and I hoped he wouldn’t “shoot his eye out.”

With trepidation, I watched as Gary showed him how to load the BB’s, how to carefully shoot and how to stay safe while having fun. He was so cute in his safety goggles, lining up the pop cans on the fence in the backyard and picking them off, one by one. He was a natural.

Keeping my promises was always a big deal to me. Sometimes life happened and the fulfillment had to wait, but my children knew that my word was good.

As I grieve Nathan’s passing, I am acutely aware that the Lord has promised many, many things to me and to you. I am discovering that His word is good— always.

Joshua 21:45 “Not one of the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass.”