I walk my dog Thistle along the country road where we live most evenings. Yesterday we were strolling along, enjoying the cooler temperatures, when a huge something came crashing down through tree limbs across the road from us. We froze.
My first thought was that a bear cub had lost it’s grip and taken a tumble, but it’s the wrong time of year for cubs. What could it be? A turkey? A raccoon out during the day? I did my duty as a female of the species and ran through all the worst possible scenarious I could think of in about 30 seconds.
Then, since there was no further movement from the large clump of something lodged about 10 feet up in the branches of some small trees, we moved closer. About that time I saw a squirrel slowly ease out from the middle of the mass and scamper down to the ground.
It was a squirrel nest. You see them high in the trees after the leaves have come down in the fall–rough clumps of sticks and leaves. I’d never seen a green one before and had certainly never seen one fall out of a tree with a squirrel still inside. Poor little thing.
It got me thinking about how much work that squirrel had put into building a home that suddenly fell down. Now she’ll have to start over. As a human prone to give human attributes to animals, I thought the squirrel looked a little chagrined. But of course it didn’t. It will just go back and start again. No mourning, no stomping of little squirrel feet or gnashing of little squirrel teeth. No giving up becuase it’s just TOO overwhelming.
How many times has something you built unexpectedly fallen down? Did you want to give up? Was it too much to even think about starting over? Maybe when we feel overwhelmed we should think of that squirrel, going back to the top of the tree and trying again. Simply because that’s what squirrels do.
Simply because that’s what children of God do.