This morning I paid a visit to my favorite local pond. It had been a while since I'd been there and I was surprised to see it covered in ice! The sheer surface that is usually rippling water now looked like an olympic skating surface (though the ice was actually too thin to consider walking on). I thought about all the life in the pond below the surface, including fish and turtles. I also thought about the herons and the local bald eagle who depend on fishing the pond to survive. Somehow they all have to adapt to this dramatic change in their world. Apparently the turtles, who are amphibious and can live in the water or out of it, tend to hibernate in the winter. One source said that they go to the bottom of the pond covered in ice and bury themselves in the muck until conditions improve. Sometimes shocking things happen to "rock our world" too. The unexpected can happen in the form of a sudden illness, loss of job, shocking car accident...Our routine can suddenly freeze over and we have to scramble to adapt. Like the turtle we may have to take the opportunity to vacation in a warmer zone...who knows, the turtle may consider resting in the muck a luxury...like a "turtle spa". But it is encouraging to remember that God is not surprised by any turn of events or change of conditions. No matter what may enter, upend or bend our world....He will be with us in it and through it and with Him we can cope...like the turtle under the ice. (After all...He made the ice as surely as He made the pond)
Job 37:1 (from the Message) No one can escape the weather—it's there. And no one can escape from God. Wild animals take shelter, crawling into their dens, When blizzards roar out of the north and freezing rain crusts the land. It's God's breath that forms the ice, it's God's breath that turns lakes and rivers solid.
blessings,
Rob Smith
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