Are you familiar with the morel mushroom?
We weren’t until we moved to Iowa, back in ’98. We built a house on some heavily treed property, that sloped down to a creek. About this time of year, right after we’d moved in, we noticed some people carrying bags down near the creek, and they were all rummaging around like they’d lost something valuable and were intent on finding it.
Kevin went to investigate.
It turned out that our piece of property, wild and empty and unfenced for years, was known for its morel crop. It had just the right growing conditions, and those people were offering to pay us for the morels if they could harvest them, or share their bounty with us if they could just keep coming. We then became familiar with their honeycomb-like appearance, and where to find them. Like treasure, we knew they’d be hiding just out of view, and we’d have to go look for them.
Last night, my friend, Lynne, posted this picture of her husband holding up the unbelievable mother lode of morels he found.
These are crazy huge, folks. Ridiculously big. Those people back in the late ’90’s would’ve DIED.
The interesting thing is that, instead of being located way in the back of their property, like they always are, they discovered these up near the front, tucked behind the bird feeder. Totally unexpected, and beyond their wildest morel dreams!
Sometimes I think we tend to hope that blessings just fall from the sky, right on top of us. And they really do, on occasion, pouring out in lavish fashion like so much fine perfume. But I’ve found that sometimes they’re not as obvious. Sometimes we can’t seem to see any good things at all in plain sight, and that’s when we have to go looking for them. We have to train our eyes to spot them, and look everywhere, even where we’d least expect it.
Especially there.
That’s where you’ll often find the mother lode of blessings.
A delicious treasure tucked just out of view.
“Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see—how good God is. Blessed are you who run to him.” Psalm 34:8 MSG