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“Grandma! This dirt is walking, eight year old Elizabeth shouted excitedly. I brushed a wisp of hair away from my face and tasted sand from my garden glove. Cramming last years dead crop of petunias into my Hefty bag I said wisely, if a bit absentmindedly, “Honey, dirt can’t move. Can you help Grandma clean up these leaves over here?” I wanted to get my garden ready to plant some Spring color. Maybe I’d plant some Pansy’s right here. Elizabeth responded in a serious tone, “I would Grandma, but I just discovered a scientific breakthrough here. You really gotta see this!” I glanced over. Elizabeth was hunkered down staring intently into the soil. Well, it was better than staring mindlessly at SpongeBob on TV, or dwelling on her Daddy being gone again, I thought. I grabbed my rake and started raking.
I ruminated about my son-in-law Jeff, traveling the South, with his rock band, “The Zombies”. When was he going to grow up and get a real job? He was 30 years old for heaven’s sake. Meanwhile my daughter, Kara, supported the family as a secretary. I resented Jeff not taking his family responsibilities seriously.
I got that bag stuffed full of leaves, and Elizabeth was still investigating the same plot of garden. Maybe I’d better see what she was up to. I stooped down. Lo and behold, she had discovered what appeared to be a tiny piece of dirt, walking. “What is that, Elizabeth?” I asked. “It’s a very weird bug, Grandma,” she informed me. We watched it lumber along. It appeared to have collected odds and ends of debris and stuck them onto its back. “What is it, Grandma?” Inquiring minds needed to know. “Lets go in and get a glass of sweet tea and I’ll see if I can find out.” I said.
I dug out “Florida Insects, Their Habits and Control” by Lewis S. Maxwell. Well Elizabeth, it says that what you’ve found is called a Trashbug. “It feeds on Aphids, Scales and Mites,” I read, “The larva fastens the dried shells of his victims on his back and crawls around looking like an animated trash heap.” We both laughed. The entry went on: “When the young reach larval maturity, they spin a silken cocoon from which emerges the lovely Lacewing. The Lacewing is about one half to three fourths of an inch in length. It is a lovely, green, fragile insect that has golden eyes.”
Suddenly I realized that I had been carrying around trash in the form of ugly thoughts toward my “victim”, my son-in-law, just like the Trashbug. God was using Elizabeth’s funny little bug to speak to me.
It was time to take her home. During the short drive there, I prayed, “Lord, please help me to not bear grudges and resentment toward Jeff. Help me to see things from Your perspective. In Christ’s Holy Name, Amen.”
Elizabeth rolled down her car window to take in the fresh spring sunshine. The phuff-tudda, phuff-tudda noise it made as I accelerated to 30 miles per hour annoyed me. I started to yell “Roll up the window,” but thought better of it. It was Spring, after all! The fresh breeze blew in the car. I felt a little tickle on my finger. Yuck! It felt like a bug. It was. But it wasn’t the mosquito, or fly or bee I was dreading. It was a pale, bright, neon green slender nymph with gossamer wings! A Lacewing! God had heard my prayer! I felt like He understood and would help me with the relationship between me and Jeff. A Spring thaw had started to melt Winter’s killing frost in my heart.
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