Collecting Acorns

Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may give thanks to Your holy name and glory in Your praise.  Psalm 106:47

I can't stop picking up acorns.

There are oodles of them this year, have you noticed?  People say that means we'll have a long, cold winter.  (Silly people. Of course we will . . .  It's northern Michigan!)  I don't know if acorn count is an accurate weather forecaster or not, but I do know that our yard and driveway are littered with them.

Which means that I spend a lot of time bending over these days.  I don't know what it is about acorns, but I find them irresistible.  There is something so appealing about the smooth brown shell tapered to a point that just begs to be poked into the palm of a hand, all topped off with a jaunty little cap.  

It starts innocently.  I spy a nut on the pavement, bend to pick it up, admire it for a moment, and pop it in my pocket.  Then another one catches my eye and I'm off again, picking up and pocketing.  Before you know it my pockets are bulging and hands are full, with nuts and caps spilling over the sides as I scramble to keep hold of them all.

Finally I give in and go fetch a container from the house and begin filling it. No more casual bending and pocket popping; now I am on a mission, determined to find and claim every nut in the yard.  I scan carefully for stragglers, ruffling my feet through the leaves to find any acorns that might be hiding in the dark places below.  As I hunt I keep one eye on the treetops above, where the local squirrels scold and fret as I plunder their winter's food supply. I'm not willing to share, though.  They can get their own acorns.  These are mine.

I confess that I'm a little choosy about the acorns I'll collect.  If they've got a little squirrel nibble or a small crack they might go in my bucket, but the really broken ones and the squished ones under the van get left behind. If it looks like an insect might have taken up residence I toss them away, not wanting to infect my entire collection.

I've been collecting for several weeks now, and the acorns are starting to pile up.  There are little piles of them on the kitchen table, in the bathroom, on my dresser and on the dashboard.  Several glass vases filled with acorns adorn the living room.  I've spent more time than I care to admit poking around on Pinterest looking for craft projects that call for vast amounts of acorns, because by golly, I've got 'em.

And yet, every time I walk out the door, the routine begins again - see an acorn, bend to pick it up, slide it into my pocket.  There is no such thing as too many.  I want them all.

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Do you think God has pockets?

He's a collector, I know that.  Not of acorns, I don't imagine, although surely He's as pleased with their palm-poking points and comical caps as I am.  No, He collects people.  And He wants as many as He can get.

He started with just one.  The first one, the one He created from a handful of dirt.  And ever since then He's been collecting.

I wonder about that every once in a while.  I think about how God wants us to be His children.  How He went to such great lengths just so that we can belong to Him.  It's funny to me.  I mean, look at us.  In the grand scheme of things, we're nothing special.  Just a bunch of nutty humans, small and insignificant in the universe.

And yet God seeks us out, scoops us up with greatest affection, and lays us in the pierced palm of His Son, where we are safe and wanted and loved.

He doesn't just collect the perfect specimens, either.  Our God hunts and searches and looks in every dark corner to find each and every one of us . . . the broken, the wounded, those crushed by life.  There are no rejects.  None are tossed back.  

God wants us all.  As many as He can get.

It's not deep.  It's not profound.  It's just a little thought that is making me happy as I shuffle my feet among the leaves.

There are a lot of acorns in the world.  Some of them are pretty great.  But you know what?

No matter how many other people are His, God wants . . . me.

And you know what else?

He wants you, too.


First published in the Alpena News, October, 2014