The Lizard in the Living Room

Have you ever noticed that when a dog is in, he wants to be out? When a dog is out he wants to be in. When my hair is short, I want it to be long. When my hair is long I want it to be short. When it is summer, I long for the cold. When it is winter, I long for warmth.

Last night, when I lay down in bed and settled in my nice warm covers to read, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a little head. The last time this happened, I ended up with a copperhead snake in the hallway, so I jumped up and looked around. I must have been seeing things. I went to bed, but not without trepidation.

This morning I was going about our typical homeschool day doing ten thousand things at once, and went racing into my room, then screeched to a halt because the little head from the night before was looking right at me. There in the middle of the rug was a little anole lizard. Its little head pivoted to gaze peacefully at me. I slowly backed out of the room and then ran to get a plastic container, hurried back, and popped it over the lizard. Then I scooped it up, and after showing it to Asherel who found this much more exciting than quadratic equations, I let it go outside. I opened the container next to a large bush, and it slowly crawled out onto the branch. It was very cold so I scurried back in.

"Are you sure we can't keep it?" asked Asherel, "It is so cold. Will it be ok?"
"I am sure, and yes, it will be ok. It hibernates." ( I hope and pray it does anyway.)

I thought about how like that little creature I am... always longing to be where I am not. Our Bible study today was from Romans 7:15, where Paul laments , "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate....I do."

The lizard thought it wanted to be warm and inside our house. However, there was no food for it inside our house, and ultimately it would die, or be eaten by our ever prowling dogs. It belonged ouside where it was cold and it did not want to be cold. I could totally relate to the lizard's conundrum. We both longed for some perfection that was unattainable.... at least here on Earth. The longing was good, I think, planted in me, in Paul, and in the lizard so we would remember to strive for something better. But in a sense, we were still out in the cold.... and shivering til Heaven let us in.