Hey Creacher!

Once upon a time in a city called Visalia in a conservative pond in California, there was a creature that had become exceedingly frustrated with an evolutionary leap that he was too dull to prepare for. You see, this creature had married out of his species order, a story for another time, but he married a beautiful woman that perfectly entails the saying, “Sugar and spice and everything nice!” She will rightly be called, Honey. The happy and complete couple happened to be high school sweethearts and married for over 13 years (together over 17 years) and had 3 handsome litter critters along the way.

Amidst a year and a half of Covid and its variants, the head creature of the family had already evolved enough, in his own mind. He had been a registered nurse for over 10 years and moved back to a job that would allow him to drop off and pick up his little critters from their learning ponds and to have weekends off to never miss church pond. Creacher as we’ll call him, pronounced similar to the word “Preacher”, you will come to see that Creacher does wittingly-dull things such as this more often than not and that he finds such notions exceedingly hilarious! His closet humor is shared only amongst a few kin and only appreciated by his critters and himself.

Creacher, a lay- minister who had been such since the time he was a nursing student, which happens to be about 12 years. This particular week the Critters started league soccer and the oldest critter, had additionally started cross-country! Due to Creacher having to be in more places at once the situation proved to be more than he could bare. We now all pray, “God rest his soul!” Well, not really, he didn’t die he just prays “God rest this soul!”

That is not to say that his life wasn't placed in grave danger. Creacher was off his rocker one particular evening and spoke, well...not so smartly to Honey. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned is an adage that young critters need to learn and quick must they learn it! Honey didn’t talk to Creacher for a day and a half.

But the Grace of God that Creacher rests his whole life on, finally poured down from heaven at just the right time. Creacher had prayed for God to help reconcile him and Honey into right fellowship and to learn from his mistake.

Honey and Creacher gathered round an old pond at Mooney Grove park, a place where Honey ran cross country back in high school. Seeing their oldest critter arrayed in school color and the wrong athletic uniform (another story) about to run his first race-and in Honey’s old stomping grounds, caused memories and the love that has abounded after all this time, to well up in Creacher and Honey’s tickers. Creacher smiled his best smile at Honey and she finally let her guard down. Creacher then proceeded to snap a photo of her with his old but trusty telephoto kits lens DSLR. Yes, you read that correct, a DSLR!

“But why!? You may ask. The simple answer is that even though the latest smart phones can take photos that are just as good as digital cameras and much easier and convenient to carry, they don’t have sufficient zooming capabilities to capture great sports photos and Creacher was not about to miss Critter 1’s first race. We’ll call  Critter #1/Luke, by the handle Creacher gave to him which is Kooba, from now on.

Lessons:

Creacher experienced a bunch of emotions and spiritual thoughts while watching his son run his race (another story and lesson) but we can end with this truth:

Every person runs their own race in life (1 Corinthians 9:24)and we can choose to be  either one of these:

• Cheerers of others running and encouraging them along the way
• Critical sideline commentators
• Lazy bystanders clogging up the track, not willing to move forward in our own race

Which one do you want to be?