If God Cares About Grandpa Turtle

"Danny moved Grandpa off the road so he wouldn't get smashed," Jonathan said on our family chat, with the following picture attached. 

Wait. What?? It was a huge turtle, dubbed "Grandpa," by Jonathan, who has more humor in him than I usually realize.

Danny and he couldn't bear to drive by without rescuing the slow and lumbering creature from certain crushing by the monster vehicles that rumble by all day long. 

Meanwhile, my native friend had someone come to her home and give her a fawn they had seen lying in the ditch for two days. "I need goat milk ASAP," my friend texted. She called three game commissions, but was told they could not take the little creature and good luck. So she decided to try to save it herself. 

And she did. 

For a week, she coaxed that fawn to drink from a baby bottle, and soon he was dancing around her living room with her dogs and sleeping on a blanket in her bedroom and napping in his own cozy corner of her very small living room.

And speaking of babies, Danny found this baby bird at their job site. He tried to feed it worms, but it just didn't work too well.

At least he tried. 

"A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast," God's Word says. In other words, a righteous man takes responsibility for his animals, and cares about their health and comfort, at least as well as he is able. 

And if God looks after His creatures, and notes when a fawn is left in a ditch, a turtle is left on the road, or a bird falls from its nest, surely He cares even so much more for each of us His created beings. 

I felt myself strangely comforted as the washer in the laundry room whirred during its last spin--something familiar and routine versus the shock of the grief of losing Jonathan's brother and the dread--no matter how much we seek to trust it to God--of what the future holds regarding both Jonathan's and my health.

I find in these homey moments--the washer spinning, ingredients set out on the counter for pumpkin bread made with our own frozen garden pumpkin, and the clock ticking, 

it is good to remember that God cares.

That He will keep in perfect peace the one whose mind is stayed on Him. 

Because He cares for us.