Tip of My Iceberg

‘Tis the season to be moving.

I’ve quite a few friends who are packing up and moving to new locales. All are looking for places that will accommodate family, work and fun well–and affordably.

We’ve lived in our house a long time. It’s comfortable. Full of memories–good and not so good.

The place our family calls home.

What makes it work as well as it does is that we had a say in the matter.

Not sure how I’d have responded had I been told exactly where to live. Or had been taken from where I was living and put somewhere I didn’t want to be.

That’s been the plight of three aquatic friends in our back yard.

Our pond abounds with snapping turtles, fish, ducks. The occasional otter. Sometimes a gator. And those pesky water moccasins.

This past weekend, the grands were out back catching turtles with a net. Attracting them with bits of bread and hot dog. Not hard to catch.

The kids decided to create a turtle habitat for the critters. Against my daughter and husband’s advice, I gave them a large plastic container to use for said habitat.

All the while, the nay sayers told me I’d regret it.

I do.

They now flounder helplessly in my back yard. The temperature has hit the 90’s. I’m fearful of them being boiled alive in their little shallow home away from home. Some wildlife preservation group will arrest me for cruelty to turtles.

I can’t move the heavy containers. They’re full of water and mud. I don’t want to stick my hand where I can’t see the little guys. They are, after all, snapping turtles.

I do feel bad. This isn’t their home. They’ve been there for three days, and I don’t know if they’re starving to death. Not a clue what these guys eat. Bugs or minnows or algae or something that I’m not planning on buying or catching. The bread and hot dogs enticed–they didn’t satisfy.

Is that a picture of home?

I do all I can to make our home comfortable–within the confines of a budget. No matter how much effort I put into it, home is never quite the place it needs to be. Like those sad turtles, I’m in a place that won’t totally satisfy. It’s enticing and wonderful at so many levels. Fun and, for a time, enough.

But this isn’t home.

We long for the Garden. It’s where we’re meant to be.

When man walked away from God, determined to do things his way, God ushered him out of the Garden.

Not a move of anger and rejection. One of love–so we wouldn’t find ourselves eternally separated from Him. With no hope of redemption.

What we need is to be with Him.

There will be those who say I’m full of pond scum. That we need to make the world the best place we can for as many as we can.

I agree. I’ll do my part.

Deep down, nothing here will satisfy us for the long haul.

Darkness will always find a way to ruin our best intentions and efforts.

We need hope in more than what we can see.

Jesus wants to lead us back to the Garden.

Home.

I need to release those turtles.

The pond calls.