Welcome to another week of our Everyday Jesus link-up. Be sure to link-up below this post, comment on your neighbor’s blog and share with your friends… Because Jesus is everywhere, every day!
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Growing up in the country was straight up awesome. Sure, a few decades later I appreciate that we have 3 (or more?) Target Stores within a 30 minute drive and a gas station is a little over half a mile away instead of 17. But man– my childhood in the country was one adventure after another.
My sister and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the out-of-doors, specifically playing in our “hideout” and perusing the nearby creek for critters. When we were less than a decade old, we would spend hours with our elbows (and sometimes feet/legs, whole selves) in the shallow creek behind our house. Most evenings we would come home muddy and soaking wet– with our “prize” in an ice cream bucket.
Since we lived in the country (and this was before extensive school bus rules) we would normally take our “prize” to school the next day for show-and-tell. Mr. Nech, our bus driver, always let out an amused sigh as we marched the sloshing bucket up the steep bus stairs at 6:30am. His mustache would curl up into a tiny smile and say, “Well girls, whatcha got in the bucket today?”
Our bucket could contain anything from worms, a fuzzy caterpillar, crawdads, frogs, a “porcupine egg” (actually, it was a cocklebur– my uncles liked to tease me– but that’s a story for another time) and our absolute favorite… Tadpoles.
Tadpoles were our speciality because they were relatively easy to catch and we didn’t have to walk all the way down the creek to get them. If we timed it right a few days after a rainstorm, our driveway puddles would be filled with the little creatures.
I remember one afternoon, my sister and I made an excellent haul of tadpoles. Our one-gallon ice cream bucket was filled with pond water and small black specks with tails swam (happily?) in their new temporary home.
We set the bucket right out side the shed and ran to the house so Mom could melt some holes in the ice cream bucket lid with a straight screwdriver she heated on the stove.
Did I mention that we lived on a real live ranch? Like a ranch where my Dad would work cattle on horseback?
And did I mention that our horse Booker was saddled and tied to the front of the shed, unknowingly within reach of our tadpole bucket?
You can probably see where this is going.
By the time my sister and I returned to our bucket of amphibians, we were shocked.
It was empty. Drained. Dry.
We quickly glanced around to see if it spilled, but suddenly realized that Booker apparently needed a drink.
And he wasn’t picky where the water came from or what it had in it.
We ran back to the house, screaming, tears streaming down our face. Mom gave us a quick once-over, looking for blood, protruding bones or missing appendages. We were convinced that not only had we accidentally caused the untimely death of a few dozen tadpoles, but that we would soon be responsible for the murder of our beautiful dun horse.
I think Mom might have laughed through her hand when she realized our froggy faux pas.
Long story still long, our horse was completely fine. And we took a temporary hiatus from collecting any more tadpoles for show-and-tell.
So what can we learn from this tadpole debacle?
If you love something, protect it.
Our “somethings” can be a number of things.
Protect our relationships. If we have relationships that we treasure, we can’t just let them dangle out in the world unprotected. This world is a messy place, and while we aren’t called to live paranoid convinced that everyone/thing is a thirsty horse lurking to drink our tadpole water, we do need to be intentional about protecting our relationships. Protect your marriage from temptation. Protect friendships. Be aware of the threat and don’t run off to leave your beloved “tadpole bucket” unattended.
Protect our time. Remember the Everyday Jesus from a while back about treating our schedule like our middle school dance partner and leaving room for Jesus? If something is important to us and we love it, we must protect our time around it. Studying the word. Fitness. Relationship building (see #1.) Even fun things, like adequate rest, reading and for me, Zentangling. Time is precious– safeguard it from not-so-awesome world forces.
Protect our hearts. Have you noticed the junk floating around in our world lately? Seriously. It makes my stomach hurt. There is gross things everywhere– 50 Shades of Gray (gag, puke, please-dont-see-this-because-it-will-ultimately-harm-relationships-dont-get-me-started.) Facebook can be nasty. TV. Even magazines and books. Call me a prude, but I am very proactive about what I watch/read/view– because we never know what the enemy might use to try to take us out.
What “tadpole bucket” of life do you need to protect from thirsty horses nearby? What are your strategies to do so? Chime in and join the conversation by leaving a comment.
Oh, and one last thought… If we struggle with protecting the important aspects of our lives, we don’t have to do it alone. We can always ask Jesus to help us. Because He cares. He is present in our everyday. And He will help protect our metaphorical tadpole buckets from all the thirsty little horses.
Putting a lid on my tadpole buckets,
“The hand of our God was on us, and he protected us from enemies and bandits along the way.” ~Ezra 8:31 NIV
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