To Be Still and Know: Back Roads and Bridges Volume 3

By Randy Eason

To Be Still and Know is the third book of the Back Roads and Bridges series by Randy Eason. In these pages, he continues to share his outdoor adventures with family, friends, and God, and the life lessons learned through these experiences, where the heart of the hunter is openly portrayed for all to see.

It is said that God speaks to us all, if we just learn to listen. Author Randy Eason has found in nature the place where Gods will reveals itself within him, where he can clear his mind of the day-to-day clutter and his spirits are lifted.

He employs a descriptive style that puts you right there in the tree stand with him, and a respect for all of nature, especially the animals he pursues. These stories are a refreshing read for hunters of all ages, even those whose feet have never left the pavement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Aug 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781449717537

Randy Eason

This is the third installment in what I have penned as "The Back Roads and Bridges Series". Meaning, the back roads are where I find peace, and a quiet place to talk to God. And the bridges are the lessons of life, learned through outdoor experiences. My books have sold on every continent on earth (except Antarctica), and I have developed a healthy following both inside and outside of the Christian community. I know that one of my spiritual gifts is to write of the sometimes miraculous blessings God has shown me through my outdoor pursuits. The resulting stories are not about me and my prowess. They are given to me as a means to reach out to souls that they can connect with, or are going through something, and need to know that someone else has been there too. I am humbled to be used in this way by my Creator, and try with all that I am to be worthy of the blessings He bestows on me. By using each one to connect with those that might not be reached any other way. I have always felt closer to God when I am 20 feet up a tree. The world slows down and I feel that I can hear Him better. Away from the distractions of the things of man, where I can see His handiwork in everything around me. From the rocks to the trees to the breeze on my face. And through my study of the natural world and primitive living, I learned to take only natural items, fashion my own weapons, and have provided meat for my table with them. A truly spiritual feeling I assure you. I was Chairman of the Kansas City chapter of The Christian Bowhunters of America for 12 years. But being a single parent, raising my two girls on my own, I have since passed that on to other worthy souls. Being a divorced man, I knew my ministry had to be outside of the everyday church, and God blessed my efforts placing us in the presence of over 50,000 outdoors men and women every year as a witness. I grew up on a farm in west central Missouri, in the day when a fence was just something you climbed over, rather than a boundary line. And the number one reason people hunted, was simply to have hunted. Where a stranger was just a friend you had not yet met, and the word neighbor meant more than the people who live down the road. I write about faith and family and tradition, and the adventures I share with my daughters. Who are my legacy to this world, and also my best friends.

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Copyright © 2011 Randy Eason

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-1754-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-1755-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-1753-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011929110

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/25/2011

Contents

Introduction

Glory Days

The Power of Prayer

(Be Careful What You Wish For)

Field Notes From Texas 2003

Children Make the Heart Too Big For the Body

He’s Had a Good Run

Human Weakness Manifests God’s Strength

You Can’t Keep God’s Man Down

He Gives Me Strength

The Extinct Sportsman

A Place in the Son

Little Windows to the Soul

One Fine Autumn Day

I Just Want to Go Hunting

Angels Are Among Us

I’ve Got More Stones to Throw

Looking Into the Past

A Gift of Time

I Want My Life Back

Tomorrow is the Scariest Word in the Bible

And the Stone Was Just the Right Size

to Put the Giant on the Ground

Radio Interview/That’sSick.com

A Light Unto My Path

For all you story tellers out there, both young and old, whose eyes light up and words come too fast, stealing your breath with excitement. Also to my best buddies, and hunting companions Rachel and Autumn. This volume could not have been released without your help and encouragement. There really is no comparison for the love a father finds in his children.

 Introduction

I once heard a bow hunter described as an unpredictable instinctive creature, from the boy with his first bow, to the delightful old man conjuring up memories of long ago hunts. I hope I am still somewhere in between. There is no way I could have known the day I first took up pen and paper, with the thrill of a hunt still in my heart, that I would be here with you, sharing these tales of adventure that have now become three volumes thick.

Back Roads and Bridges Volume 1 was released in 2001, and frankly brought more attention than I was ready for at the time. So many of my readers, like myself, had grown tired of the self serving stories that today are so popular with the outdoor magazines. I began writing simply because the hunter’s heart was so rarely portrayed, and with the connection between God, creation, and the urban population ever widening, I knew that at least for me, with each new tale, I was growing closer to Him. And the more I wrote, the more I was blessed.

A Voice In the Wilderness, Back Roads Volume 2, was released in 2004, and came at a time when I really needed to move on with my life. Many single parents today work two or more jobs so they can buy

To Be Still and Know, Back Roads Volume 3, picks up where volume 2 left off, and carries you through the next seven years of our lives, holding tightly with both hands to each other, and to God. In Acts chapter 5 verse 41 the disciples, departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name, after having just been beaten for telling the people about the gospel. Now I’m not saying I know what it feels like to receive thirty nine lashes with a leather strap across my back, which was the custom of that day, but we have all had our

Many people define God’s love as keeping them safe from harm. But God allows something different in the lives of every family, helping them to reach out to the world in unusual ways beyond their understanding. In this third installment as I have searched for God’s purpose in my life, and how He relates that to me through my outdoor pursuits, I have found this common thread. That God is an ever-present help in times of trouble, if we can just Be Still and Know that He is God……………………

 Glory Days

Remember the first time you truly felt like the king of your own castle? Where you could throw your socks on the floor, and maybe even run with the scissors if you wanted?

It was probably just a one bed room place, barely big enough for a hand-me-down couch and a TV. But when you got home after working all day, kicked back and turned on the tube, you couldn’t help but think, It’s good to be the king!

Today you probably look back on those days as the lean years. When you remember how little you really had. But still the memories are fond ones. And those feelings of accomplishment and pride that you felt were so much greater than anything money could buy.

Now I know some of you are saying, Oops! Pride is a sin. It says so in the Bible. To that I can only say, do you really think that God called you out of the world to be His child, and doesn’t want you to ever feel good about yourself? I don’t think so.

Today you look back through those old photo albums and smile, remembering those lean times as well as the times of plenty. And you treasure the snap shots for how they trigger those memories and make you feel. Hunting is a lot like that for my family.

A woman once came into my home, looked up on the wall, and say, Yep, you’re an Eason alright. I haven’t been in an Eason house yet that didn’t have a deer head hanging on the wall. In hunting, as in life, we go through the lean times as well. And those mounts are the snapshots that stir the special memories of our hearts.

You may walk by it every day and not look up. Life has gotten so hectic that you haven’t noticed it in months. Then one day when you’re feeling down. Or you’ve been out ten times in a row and have begun to feel lucky just to see a few squirrels.

That’s when you look at that mount. At how someone seems to have almost brought it back to life there on your wall. And then those memories come alive again as the emotions of that day flood back into your heart and mind. How the frost that morning was so heavy, it gave everything a blanket that seemed to deaden every sound in the world. How one second he wasn’t standing there, and the next he was. How you never even had a clue such an animal existed on the property you hunt, but always dreamed to one day cross paths with one like him. And how you seemed to do everything wrong that time too. But God smiled down on you anyway and made it all come together.

One of my favorite movie scenes comes from the movie My Cousin Vinny. I know the language is a little harsh for me too, let alone my kids. But the days are gone when everything Disney makes is rated G, and Hollywood lost all sight of morals years ago.

Any way, in the movie, Vinny, a lawyer, is preparing to go hunting with the prosecutor, when his fiancee asks him what he’s going to hunt. Vinny replies that he isn’t sure, but the other fellow has several heads on his wall. To this Marisa Tomei, who won the Oscar that year for best actress for this role, looks like someone just hit her in the face with a boat paddle. HEADS!!! she exclaims. What kind of heads!! Her character can’t even fathom the thought of an animal head on the wall. But she goes around the rest of the movie, snapping picture after picture, so they’ll have memories to look back on when their trip is over. In the end one of her snapshots, and the knowledge she gained earlier in life, through time spent with her family, saves the day.

Sound Familiar? It’s been nearly thirty years since I began to learn just how much I would never know about the whitetail deer.