Hopping a ride

Since we have three days of Dog agility trials coming up, we decided it was time to take the two kayaks down from their home atop the van. We would have no kayaking time in all likelihood for several days. They had been there for 2 weeks,with the brief time off for kayaking the Maury River in Virginia Sunday. The kayak holder that we broke down and bought is secure, fairly quiet, and the kayaks traveled a thousand miles without mishap on it. So since our return Sunday, they had stood like stegasaurus plates adorning the back of the van, and it was time to remove them.

As we lowered one kayak to the ground, Asherel erupted in peals of laughter. She almost dropped the kayak, and insisted that I must come see.

Crawling out of one of the little drainage holes in the kayak was a toad, a toad that had undoubtedly been up there since Sunday. That toad had traveled 500 miles in screaming 70 mph crosswinds atop the van, and then nestled in the kayak drainage hole in near hundred degree sun for three days and three nights. He had probably hopped on the kayak bottom at some point in our trip down the Maury river and then been unwittingly transported across two states.

He crawled back in the hole as we gently put the kayak down, and I coaxed him out. He was reluctant.
"You cannot imagine what I have been through," he croaked from his hole in the kayak, "One moment I am splashing in a fresh cool mountain river scarfing down tasty microorganisms, and the next I am being buffeted by hurricane force winds, watching monsters whizzing by to the right and the left of me, baked for three days in unbearable sun on hard dark plastic, and without a bite to eat or a drop of water to dampen my parched tongue. My only refuge has been this hole, and let me tell you, it is not where the Queen of England would want to settle."

"But frog," I consoled him, (though Asherel insists it is not a frog or it would be dead- frogs need water to live in.... it is a toad), "Don't you see how blessed you are? When the hurricane came, you could've been stripped off the kayak faster than the icing on my cupcake- but God gave you a place to hide. When you thought you would die of thirst, He gave you the morning dewdrops, nectar of the air. And when your belly was so empty because no bug in its right mind would dare crawl up on that broiling hot plastic in this heat, God brought you me and Asherel, to lift you down into the cool and bug infested grass. Go ye forth and multiply the earth."

"Well, when you put it that way...." he grunted, and he crawled feebly onto my hand. I lowered him gently to the soft, cool grass in the shade and he hopped behind a bush.

I can't fault him for not wanting to leave the drainage hole. It wasn't much but it was the only place of safety he knew. It was a huge "leap of faith" to trust us to settle him into a strange and new land he had never been. I hope death is like that. I know we cling to life, with all its imperfections, and indeed we should, I think, until it is clear God is calling us Home. But when He does, I suspect I will grip my hideyhole tightly, not knowing I am being gently placed in a comforting and verdant land where Grace and Mercy heal my warty soul.

Hebrews 11:8-10 (New International Version)

⁸By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. ⁹By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.