Rescuing Toad!

I was spring cleaning this morning and decided that even though my allergies are driving me crazy with all the Oak pollen in the air, I'd open some windows and let the spring air come in. The first window I opened looks out over my neighbors pond and I was met with the sweetest sound I've heard in a while. Frogs croaking! That means they have left their mud burrows for the winter and are looking for love! Croaking frogs to me, mean spring!

Since I have a biology degree and spent more years than I care to admit teaching Biology to middle and high school students, frogs have always been something that interests me. While I've spent my fair share of cutting dead ones open to teach internal anatomy, luckily virtual dissections are taking over, frogs actually tell us a lot about our environment. When you have a lot of frogs, that is a signal that your water quality is very good and there are enough insects and worms and such to support a large number of them. Apparently, we have a great, healthy water system and are blessed with enough food for several species of frogs, lizards and salamanders on this little spread of land!

I went out today to take a sample of pool water and when I opened up the skimmer, a toad was barely staying afloat. He looked very much like he had given up and had moved onto the big toadland in the sky. I try to check our skimmer several times a day and rescue whatever has had the unfortunate experience to fall into the pool. I draw the line on snakes, that is left to the hubby! I have rescued not just frogs and toads, but baby mice, lots of spiders and even a salamander!

When I picked toad up out of the water, I could tell he was still alive but very, very cold. Frogs and toads are what you say in elementary school, cold-blooded. They cannot regulate their own body temperature like we can. So when it's cold outside, if they can't get someplace above freezing, they are toast. They, like other amphibians and such, usually burrow deep into the earth during the winter. This unfortunate guy or gal had fallen into a very deep, very cold pond and it slowed him/her down so much, they were close to death!

I held the toad in my hands to warm him up. He croaked a bit at first to show he didn't like being held but as my body heat began to warm him up he began to actually move back further into my cupped hands to benefit from it. I tried to sit him down a few times in my flower bed but he wouldn't budge! He realized that even though at first it didn't seem like a good idea for a giant to pick him up, I was actually saving his life with my warmth. I did finally get him to sit on a sun soaked log by my flower bed and he now is happily living under the hedge by the deck.

As I watched this take place, it struck me that is how I sometimes do God. I think I can go my own way and do it my way and end up in the deep end of a very cold pool. He scoops me up and holds me in His hands, sheltering and warming me back to health. I don't like it sometimes at first because this means that I actually must admit that I can't do it all but He never puts me down, He just keeps holding me close until I regain my strength. Most often than not, once I'm back to normal again, I jump out of His safety and warmth and hop away, never thanking the God who takes care of me!

Today, I'm thanking my God and Savior who watches and keeps me safe from all the trouble I seem to get into!

Mission trip

My thirteen, almost fourteen, year old son will be leaving in a week on a mission trip. This will be his first mission trip and will be the first time he is more than a couple hours away from home. His youth group has been planning and meeting to get ready for the trip. I have been praying for him and his companions that they stay safe, have a good time, learn and grow and touch others for Christ.

It's always been very hard for me to let my kids leave my sight. They were such an undeserved gift and I truly believe that God gave them to my husband and I with a great responsibility to raise them up right. I remember when my son when on his first school trip without me. My husband was there but I almost needed medication because I was afraid that something would happen and I wouldn't be there to prevent it.

I think God placed on my heart that day a remembrance of the day my son was born. I read the story of Samuel in my bible study that day. How his mother, Hannah, gave him to Eli in the temple because she recognized that only God allowed her to be Samuels mother and she recognized that God had given her a gift to be Samuels mother. Hannah recognized that she wasn't in control of the situation anymore than I am today. God is in control and He would keep Samuel and my son safe if that is His will.

That day, as I was freaking out about my own son getting run over by a bus or something silly like that, it dawned on my that my children are not MY children but GOD'S children. I was granted the privilege of raising them, loving them, teaching them and even correcting them; but in the end, if I am successful, they will be GOD'S children. And God would never leave them on a field trip or a mission trip or even a bike ride on their own.

I still get freaked out about them getting too far away from me and when I do, I get my bible out and re-read that story. I may be reading it often over the course of these next two weeks.

Miracles

In our morning devotional at breakfast this morning, we read about God answering prayers. As I read Hebrews 11:1-10, I began to think about how we go about praying. The devotional was about how God sometimes answers our prayers by giving us the ability or strength, that He doesn't just make a miracle happen. Like God giving doctors the ability to diagnose and treat people instead of just doing what we would call a miracle.

I think back to the joke about the man on the roof in a flood. He was praying for God to save him, but when a boat and a helicopter both offered, he waved them off saying, 'God would save him'. Well, he died and when he asked God why He didn't produce a miracle to save him, God answered, 'Man, I sent a boat and a helicopter, what more did you want?'

In our modern age, I sometimes forget just how blessed by God we are in our everyday lives. So many of the things I take for granted would be miracles to those alive hundreds of years ago. We can replace corneas, knees, veins and parts of the heart. We replace skin, put hair where it wasn't and suck out fat. We save children that were born too early and people who lived far too reckless by destroying their bodies with substances. How many times a day do I witness God's miracles and never once say 'thank you'? It would embarrass me to know.

I remember when I was in a developmental biology class in college. It became apparent to me that it was a miracle everytime a baby was born. To start with one cell and end up with over a million cells in the human body working perfectly, each doing the job it was purposed for, well if that is not a miracle then what is?

Miracles aren't just found in parting the seas or bringing the dead to life. Sometimes the greatest miracles are found around us, using those around us and if we are tuned into Him, possibly us.

Tune into God today and be a miracle for someone!