Center for Injured Animals- that is... maxx and rosie (with our neighbor and car pool buddy, Harrison Reid) found this tiny baby hairless little rat looking thing in the yard. we found out through my incredible ability to google words like “tiny hairless baby animal backyard” that it was a baby squirrel. animal lovers that they are (notice i left myself out of that description), they made it a little home in a box and would not rest until i called around to find out where we could take it so it would be “saved”. one more live squirrel in the world, thanks to my kids.
when we got home from our run to the st. francis rescue place, harrison asked me in this sweet little concerned voice, “did we do the right thing?” “yes”, i assured him. yes, they did, and they even made ME do the right thing on a late friday afternoon when i wanted nothing better than to put up my feet and read all the magazines that came in the mail this week and veg out and forget that i had to sit and intently listen to a criminal trial on the jury that i was chosen for this week. some times it has to be enough that we “do the right thing” with the small seemingly insignificant tasks that are presented to us everyday. even when the big things we have to do seem so big and overwhelming.
in light of the fact that i had the horrific jury duty trial this week (and now i know why they call it a “trial”), i think it is significant in some small way that i helped to save a baby squirrel today. i know that it cannot make up for the lives that have been torn apart by sin in this world. those lives that i got to see first hand this week in a courtroom. lives that i will remember for a long time and pray for whenever God brings them to my heart and mind. but i do feel like saving this little helpless baby animal made a spark of light in a very dark week.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” (nietzsche)
i feel like i looked into the abyss this week, looked into a dark hole and saw how horrible life can be and so many times, i asked God “why?”. why didn’t he get help early on when it was so clear that he was not “right? why did she go with him when she felt like it was wrong? why is my life so “perfect”? why is there such sadness, heartbreak, and waste to our lives? why can’t there be a better solution than prison or mental hospital? will his kids always ask “why”? will i always ask “why”?
then today i saved a baby squirrel with my kids ( send my medal to me immediately).
the abyss may look back at me, but it has not swallowed me whole. if you know me very well, you know that i have a j.j. abrahms view on life (the creator of the t.v. show “lost” and ooh i can’t wait to see “6 degrees” this fall)- it ALL matters, it ALL is important, it ALL makes us who we are, EVERY detail, EVERYthing that happens is for a reason. i see God’s handiwork in EVERYthing and i can’t thank Him enough for a hairless helpless baby squirrel that needed saving, because i think it wasn’t really the squirrel that needed to be saved today...