Creation Abundance
One of the results of Kansas having had a very wet spring and early summer is an abundance of tiny toads. Their white throats gleam in the headlights that pick out a path along the road after dark. They bounce across the pavement at busy intersections on wide roads like US 50 at Partridge Road. Every country mile is well-populated with them. I wince as I drive among them, knowing that "for every one I miss I smash three others" in the rueful words of someone I talked to recently. The same person also suggested I ask a wise guy he knew about the poem he had composed with the title "Ode to a Toad on the Road."
In my garden, I smile every time I see a toad. I do a lot of smiling these days. As many as five scurry out of my way when I disturb any given clump of foliage. I rejoice especially since I know how beleaguered toads have become in recent years. They seem to serve as bellwethers of toxic-chemical levels in the environment, absorbing them through their skin, and succumbing to the poison. Environmental observers are concerned about the decrease in the toad population in recent years.
My thoughts on toads also run along the lines I heard expressed more than a decade ago by a Christian homeschooling mother whose family was facing financial disaster while also dealing with significant health challenges in their family. (Two of their three sons had terminal illnesses.) In a desperate state of mind she walked through the pasture where their horses grazed and found pool after pool of water teeming with tadpoles. She was overwhelmed at the realization that God has abundant resources at His disposal, so many that he can afford to spill them onto the earth and into our lives in lavish amounts, knowing that some of them will go unused and perhaps unappreciated, but His hand is generous nonetheless. This insight helped restore her courage and confidence in the God she was struggling to trust.
Ever since I heard this woman's story, the quiet little toads I'm seeing everywhere this year give out a loud message: God is a God of abundance.
Reflecting on this even helps me feel a little less traumatized about the unavoidable carnage I create every time I drive down the road. Regardless of how we bumble about among God's gifts and life's trials, our damage will never outstrip God's preemptive provision.
In my garden, I smile every time I see a toad. I do a lot of smiling these days. As many as five scurry out of my way when I disturb any given clump of foliage. I rejoice especially since I know how beleaguered toads have become in recent years. They seem to serve as bellwethers of toxic-chemical levels in the environment, absorbing them through their skin, and succumbing to the poison. Environmental observers are concerned about the decrease in the toad population in recent years.
My thoughts on toads also run along the lines I heard expressed more than a decade ago by a Christian homeschooling mother whose family was facing financial disaster while also dealing with significant health challenges in their family. (Two of their three sons had terminal illnesses.) In a desperate state of mind she walked through the pasture where their horses grazed and found pool after pool of water teeming with tadpoles. She was overwhelmed at the realization that God has abundant resources at His disposal, so many that he can afford to spill them onto the earth and into our lives in lavish amounts, knowing that some of them will go unused and perhaps unappreciated, but His hand is generous nonetheless. This insight helped restore her courage and confidence in the God she was struggling to trust.
Ever since I heard this woman's story, the quiet little toads I'm seeing everywhere this year give out a loud message: God is a God of abundance.
Reflecting on this even helps me feel a little less traumatized about the unavoidable carnage I create every time I drive down the road. Regardless of how we bumble about among God's gifts and life's trials, our damage will never outstrip God's preemptive provision.
posted by Mrs. I at
4:10 AM
2 Comments:
Who wrote the Ode to the toad on the Road? Was it LeRoy? --Linda Rose
By
Anonymous, at 7/13/2007
Duane Ropp told us to ask Richard Graber about the "ode" which I think he said he wrote.
Miriam
By
Mrs. I, at 7/13/2007
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