surely

surely

i was reminded of something that happened this summer about an hour ago.

while hiking through the woods at keswick with my second week of campers ever, we came across these lizards. or newts. or salamanders. but these things were bright orange, and really cool to look at. not to mention, there were a lot of them, all over. i told the kids they could look at them, but please don't touch them. obviously, that didn't work. so once they were done playing with them, we went off to other places of interest in the woods.

when we got back to our cabin after the following activity (an hour after we finished hiking) there was considerable hustle and flow around one camper in particular. when i questioned what was going on, the campers looked at me in silence. none of them wanted to speak. i told the camper they were surrounding to show me his hands since he was hiding them. dead lizards. in his small hands, dead lizards.

they were just there, lifeless. their color had drained.

i think it's amazing how human contact can mar some animals. i heard once that if you touch a bird's eggs, or handle a baby rabbit, the mother will never want it. it will be kicked out and left to survive on its own.

it seems as if a lot of this is true for relationships as well. how in everything we do, everything matters. everything. how we talk about our parents, how we treat our friend who's a little awkward, how we talk about the people we don't like. what if our view of others really was the same view as how we view ourselves... what if we were able to love God enough that the view that we have of ourselves is healthy. that we're actually able to love others.

are there issues in our lives where we need to seek God's healing and restoration. are there people we need to talk to and resolve conflicts with before we can tell God we really love him? do we love our neighbor with a self sacrificing love that says the way of Jesus is the right way to live? do people actually see that in our lives? or are we just a shadow of how Christ calls us to live? i don't want to be an imitation. i want to be a part of that greater restoration that God calls his people to.

and all this because of a simple recollection of dead orange lizards.