Considering the locusts

Luke 12:24 "Consider the ravens: they do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than the birds!"

My 6 year old and 3 year old are non-stop question askers. Anything they see that they don't know what it is they inquire about. Animals and bugs are a common subjects of their inquiries. "Why does a dog _____?" "How does a cow know to _______?" "What does a _______ eat?" More questions than I can possibly answer or KNOW the answer to. Thankfully, I believe that ultimately God knows why His creations act they way they do, so my "go to" answer is usually "that's just how God made them." I've often wondered how athiests answer their kids questions about nature/animal type things.
Lately there have been more questions about locusts than any other bug. We have a lot of them in our country yard - every day there are new cicada shells. We've even seen a few coming out of their shell. They are incredibly slow, so we have not watched one hatch from start to finish, but the kids get the picture of what happens to them. Just 2 days ago the kids saw a cicada crawling pretty fast across the yard and they beconed me to come out and watch. I am a city girl at heart and so many of my kid's firsts when it comes to bugs is also a first for me, so I was happy to watch the bug as it went on it's adventure in the grass. One thing I've learned about locusts since moving to the country is that they have to be vertical in order to come out of their shell, so as I watched this bug in the grass I could see it was heading straight for a large tree next to our deck. "Mommy, how does it know to go to the tree?" "God told it to go there." "Mommy, when will it stop crawling?" "When God tells it to" "OOH, Mommy, why is it climbing so high?" "God is telling it to go there." You get the picture - the kids and I sat in the grass watching that cicada for probably 10 minutes or more.
All this bug observation has caused me to do some thinking. I totally believe that God has a plan for ALL of His creations and he knows all of his creations. From the little bitty locust, to the hugemongous whale and every creature in between - God cares for them. So, I think, If God cares for all of the animals how much MORE does he care for me, the creature he crafted in HIS image? Whenever I worry about what we would do if our van broke down, or how we would handle a major health crisis I need to remember Luke 24:12 and think about how valuable I am to God. Surely the locusts don't worry about where they will stop and come out of their shells - they don't sit in the ground waiting to come out and think about how hard it's going to be to get out of the ground. They know (sort of) that God takes care of all those things. So, in order to really bloom, I need to take into account how LOVED I am by the Creator of all Creatures and not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself - and tomorrow God will still be there to take my worries to.

When I was a child

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." I Corinthians 13:11

I thought of this verse today as I was listening to some music I hadn't heard in a long time. When I was a teenager I LOVED a group called "the Indigo Girls". They were a kind of indie/folksy sounding girl duet. They had GREAT harmony - that's what I really loved about them. They're voices matched mine and I could sing along to both of the parts and dig how I sounded. I even did a duet of one of their songs with a girl in my high school choir at the talent show at our school my senior year (we got a standing ovation!). I saw them in concert once, too, and had a tee shirt to prove it. I had almost all of their CD's and could sing along to every song.

As I've gotten older my ideals have changed and the lifestyle that the girls in that group represent is not something I want to promote to my children, so I choose not to listen to them anymore. I thought I had gotten rid of what I had of them, however, I came across one of their CDs yesterday when I was cleaning some things out and I felt like singing today, so I popped it in the player. As soon as the first song came on I knew it, both parts and all the words - but wait. Today as I sang the words, I actually LISTENED to them. See, I could sing the words before, but I wouldn't say that I KNEW them. This first song was titled "Closer to Fine" Some of the lyrics to the chorus really struck me: "I looked to the mountains, I looked to the children, there's more than one answer to these questions pointing me in a different line. The more I seek myself for some security, the closer I am to fine". There is ONLY one answer to our questions, it's Jesus Christ. I cannot seek myself for security, I am human. God is the one and only thing I can truly lean on and trust in. I'm sure the Indigo Girls have not figured that out. Based on their lifestyle and lyrics to the songs they write I can only assume they are lost.

So, today as I continue to attempt to Bloom where God has planted me I am reminded to put away my childish things. It is dangerous to think or speak like a child. It gets me nowhere to whine like a child about where I am, or to look with envy, like a child would, at another persons life. My prayer this evening is that I will become like a (wo)man as it says in that verse and just simply (or, not so simply) grow up. I am 34 years old, after all.

Distractions

"I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways." Psalm 119:15

So often I am distracted by the things around me - or not around me, whatever the case may be. One major distraction in my life is my constant pursuit of hobbies. I am notorious for being passionate about something and pouring all of my time and thoughts into this ONE obsession for a while before ditching it and moving on to something else. This verse reminds me that I need to make God my permanent obsession. One way I can begin to bloom where God has planted me is to remain consistent in the things I know are right and good in my life right now. Caring for my family, maintaining a clean home, helping my family thrive on one income, seeking out other Christian ladies in similar life stages that I am in so that I have Godly influence of those kinds of friendships to depend on. My prayer is to make those things my "hobbies" and make meditating of God a way of life.

"I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. . . I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. . . I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." Phillipians 4: 11b - 13

That is my desire, to truly learn contentment. This blog is the beginning of my attempt at learning that lesson. My adult life has been wrought with feelings of discontentment. I'll not get into what has caused the discontent, that's not important. What is important is that God has so much in store for me, so much that he wants me to learn and do. Being content is one of the first and I believe most important lessons. So, for today I'll continue to pray for God's lessons on being content and ask for the secret of being such in any and every situation because I CAN do everything through Him who gives me strength.