Perdre Comme An Tit Chock“Lost Like A Little Black Bird”

Perdre comme an tit Chock “Lost like a little Black Bird”

On January 2nd, 2004 I decided to go have a look see for a moose on Council Road around a place called Skookum.

My intent was to run out there look around and be home that evening, but not to alarm my wife, I told her that if I got a moose I might be back the next day. I rode out of town on my snow machine enjoying the beauty which God had surrounded me with. I drove past Point Nome, entered the Safety Sound area, got to the old town of Soloman and headed up the now closed road to Council. There was no recent sign of snow machine traffic as I headed out. I saw one big black wolf behind the Reindeer building at about mile 38…out of Nome. I was headed to mile 50+ out of Nome. The temperature was great heading out of Nome mid teens to low 20’s, inland is always about 10 degrees colder. Then altitude also decreases the temperatures.

When I arrived in the Skookum area which is the summit on the road to Council, the snow and fog was caught in the peak and I couldn’t see to ride around it, I turned around and tried to find another way. I drove to where the old road used to go down into Skookum Creek and decided to go into the valley there.

Have you ever thought that you were exactly where you wanted to be and that everything was going just the way you planned?

Are you lost when you know where you are even though others no not where you are?

Psalm 28:3 Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbours, but mischief is in their hearts.

Psalm 35:20 For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land.

Lost???

Does God care about lost things???

Exodus 22:9 For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour.

Jeremiah 50:6 My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace.

How did I get lost???

As I went down into Skookum River valley, I remembered how lovely it was last fall when I had first viewed it…there were plenty of small ponds in the creek bed that hold underwater vegetation, the kind that moose like to eat. I dropped down about 1000 to 1500 feet nearly vertical then turned and ran up the side of the valley until it intersected with the creeks. To get out would require me to cross the creek so I started to scout out an area to do so…as soon as I got off the valley side my machine sank into the snow, my sled only slowed me and made it more difficult for me to go…I spent the next 6 hours getting my machine unstuck about 6 or 7 times, then exhausted at 8:30 and recognizing that I wasn’t even near getting unstuck I decided to get ready to spend the night…I knew exactly where I was about ¾ to 1 mile off of Council Road in Skookum Valley…I had told my wife and a number of friends the day before where I would be so I was pretty confident that if I could not work my way out of this then at least someone would come for me…

Have you ever been there???

I remember as a young boy growing up in Pierre Part, Belle River and the Atchafalaya Spillway being lost a couple of times…knowing exactly where I was…but…

Once I ran out of gas in Grand Lake…

Walking a new coulee trying to find if it came out anywhere I knew…

Many different road trips to places I had never been to…

You see what I have learned is that we are all lost and in need of some good direction…

Matthew 18:11 For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.

Luke 15:4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?

Luke 15:9 And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.