Playing in Plum Creek

Years ago, an old farmer was attending our church.

He saw my baby, and he asked me how I would have liked to give birth underground in a sod hut in winter. I shook my head. That sort of roughing it isn’t for me. It was hard enough to have a baby in winter with modern conveniences. 

Last week, my family visited Plum Creek in Minnesota where the Ingalls Family of Little House on the Prairie fame lived in their sod hut. It has caved in, but the spot is marked with a rope and a sign. The creek had crawfish, fish, and leeches. The prairie beyond the creek waved in the summer sun. Corn grew nearby, and cattle grazed in the distance. We saw mulberry bushes and lots of wildlife tracks, though the Ingalls are long gone. 

As we hiked there, I thought about Ma Ingalls. She had many sorrows. It was at Plum Creek that her daughter, Mary, went blind due to illness, and her son, Freddy, died. There, the grasshoppers ate all their crop. They labored to get out from under debt until finally being forced to sell out. It would have been a very hard time. 

The way Laura writes about her parents doesn’t show them succumbing to their sorrows, however. Instead, Ma’s faith sustains her. Later, after they have moved, we hear Mary say that being good isn’t a matter of thinking about being good. Instead, “it is just being sure of the Goodness of God.”

We can hear echoes of Ma’s faith in Mary’s words. Sorrow did not sink them.

The Psalmist wrote, “Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.”

Here on earth, we will all encounter sorrow, but it makes a difference if we are surrounded by the steadfast love of the Lord. 

His love is not a shield from sorrow, but instead a hand to hold through it. 

That’s why the Psalms say that death is just a shadow, not anything of substance. That’s how Mary could see, even with her blind eyes, that God is good. That’s why Ma could walk through the loss of her child, trusting God for the future of the others. That’s how we, too, can navigate the sorrows of this life. We have been surrounded. 

A friend recently gifted us five goats. I have learned that goats don’t like fences. They escape as often as possible. 

However, when the goats sense danger, they immediately run back to the fence that had surrounded them and dive back through the holes to safety. When they want to be safe, they are happy to be surrounded. 

Sorrow drives us back into the place where God’s love surrounds us. It reminds us that we must rely on His strength. It helps us to see that He is good, and His steadfast love endures forever. 

I wouldn’t have liked to live in Ma’s sod house, but I am thankful that even there, the steadfast love of the Lord would surround me.