The Tiny Teacher

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.”  Proverbs 6:6-8

We have all heard the old fable about the grasshopper and the ant.  It was in the time of those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, and Mr. Grasshopper didn’t worry about preparing for the cold, hard winter.  He was having too much fun playing his fiddle.  Little Miss Ant, on the other hand, was smart enough to know that when winter came, it would be too difficult to go out and forage for food so it was incumbent upon her to gather and store food for the long months of winter.  I don’t know why God gave ants a better instinct about taking care of themselves that He did the grasshopper.  Of course, this is a fable to teach us about being diligent to prepare for hard times, so maybe grasshoppers aren’t really that clueless to their future needs.  I really don’t have any insight into the workings of the brain of a grasshopper.  And I am not too sure about my own brain!

Speaking of grasshoppers, I don’t mind them, but what does freak me out are praying mantises.  They actually turn their heads and appear to be looking at me.  I remember a long time ago I was at my parents’ house to wash clothes.  This was before my husband and I had our own washing machine.  When I came out to my 1968 Mustang to go to our apartment, there was a huge praying mantis on the driver’s side mirror just sitting there as if he was waiting on a ride.  I hurriedly got into the car and drove about two miles home.  I thought surely that he would hop off or the wind would blow him off, but no such luck.  He hung on to that mirror for dear life as I kept one eye on him and the other on the road.  When I arrived home and exited my car, that big green monster flew straight at me.  I can’t remember if I screamed or not, but I ran for the front door.  My husband would always say, “Oh, they won’t hurt you”.  Maybe not, but they sure do give me the creeps.  My husband loved photography and made a picture of himself with a praying mantis on the top of his rather bald head several years ago.  He printed it out and put a caption at the bottom that portrayed the bug as saying, “Let’s see if I can get this thing off the ground!”

I thought perhaps a little humor would help folks in this time of hardship.  Scripture says that “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones” (Proverbs 17:22).  There’s likely a lot of folks walking around in their place of social distancing with broken spirits because of the coronavirus pandemic and the sinking economy.  I can see one thing that we can learn from this experience.  Perhaps more of us will be like the ant and look for ways to save for the future, that is, not hoard stuff, but put away a little extra once the job market returns along with a steady paycheck.  I don’t think that anyone on earth saw this coming.  When my husband and I were teaching our kids to drive, I always told them to “expect the unexpected”, that is, be alert and drive defensively, but who could have ever thought that the U.S. would go from the best economy in years to nearly the worse in just a matter of weeks.

My advice is to try and stay positive, follow the directions of your local municipality, lend a helping hand to others, six feet away, of course, and pray that God will have mercy and ease the suffering of the infected, comfort those who have lost loved ones, and bring this scourge to an end.  The government can do just so much, but God can do anything but fail.

One more thing: Happy Birthday to my grandson.  I wanted to be there for his birthday, but the COVID-19 made it unwise to travel.  Seems like we have all had to sacrifice, some more and some less.  Catch you on the flip side.