Suburban Safari

Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done…If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count. Psalm 40:5 NASB

On her back yard outings, calico cat Abby hunts for lizards and grasshoppers. When she does catch something, she brings it to me for inspection. Bugs get eaten, lizards released.

Late one night, I awoke to a shrill twittering. When I turned on the light, I saw a tiny gray field mouse cowering by the baseboard, with Abby ready to pounce. She’d caught him in the screen porch, and brought him inside to show me. The mouse looked exactly like one of Abby’s toy mousies, only this one had locomotion and a sound card!

Abby and I chased the mouse around and under furniture (with different purposes in mind). Somehow I managed to “herd” the mouse into the bathroom and stop up the space under the door. Abby wasn’t happy.

The next morning, I decided I’d better catch that mouse and put him outside. So I pushed the shower curtain over the closed shower door, and sure enough, there was a tiny thud when the mouse dropped onto the fiberglass floor. I let myself into the shower, and sat on the ledge, contemplating how to catch the mouse without hurting it. The mouse hoped his gray fur would blend with the white shower tile.

I wondered how I appear to God. God has a plan, and wants to rescue me and set me in safety, but all I can see is this moment, and this moment is frightening.

But back to the shower mouse. I sacrificed a tissue box, and slowly moved toward him. “No! No!” he squeaked. I moved in slowly. The box came down over the mouse, I tumbled him down to the bottom, and clapped a glass saucer over the top. I walked to the back yard corner and set the box down in the bouganvilla flowers. The mouse huddled in his new comfort zone, so I tipped him out of the box, into a deep pile of pink flower bracts. When I checked on him ten minutes later, he’d escaped to a world of blossoms. I saw the mouse again recently. Abby had him treed. The mouse still lives, and the cat is still frustrated!

The Lord’s thoughts toward us are of compassion and care for His children. We have nothing to fear from His rescue.