Mosquitoes

Paul and I went camping this weekend to a wonderful campground in Mercer, PA.  It was old and run down, until a wonderful couple bought it last year.  They are working on sprucing it up to make it a beautiful place for people to get away from it all.  This campground is Rocky Springs Campground.  This is the first campground we've been to where they pick up your trash every day at 6 p.m. and every morning a man comes around to clean out the ashes from your fire ring. Very special treatment!  But I digress.

As I said, this was a wonderful, even beautiful campground.  Paul doesn't usually sit around the campfire, but on both nights he built a fire and we sat there enjoying it, until we could not stand the mosquitoes anymore.  They were very tiny and very hungry.  They came into the trailer with us, so we couldn't really get away from them inside the trailer, either.  Our bodies are covered head to toe with mosquito bites, a reminder of our weekend trip.

The buzzing mosquitoes reminded me of the children's book Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears.   We discussed that book a little bit.  But then I started watching the lightening bugs coming up out of the ground.  There were hundreds of them, and they were beautiful!  Which made me wish I could write a book entitled Lightening Bugs Don't Buzz in People's Ears.  Who knows, maybe some day I will write such a book, at least for my grandson.

As I sit here trying not to scratch, I wonder why God made mosquitoes.  I know that they are food for other insects and for birds.  But why do they have to feed on the blood of people and animals, causing insane itching and swelling, and sometimes causing diseases?  I know God had a good reason for putting them in the food chain, but I just don't understand.  Maybe that is one of the questions I'll ask when I get to heaven.  Or maybe I won't care when I get there.

The creation of lightening bugs (or fireflies), on the other hand, I can totally understand.  They are beautiful to watch at night.  Children through the generations have captured the creatures not knowing that they are harming the lightening bugs.  The lightening bugs eat other insects who are pests to us. Do they eat the mosquitoes?  That I do not know.  They do not sting, bite, or otherwise harm us.  In the daytime they are very non-nondescript.




 But at night, their light that they use to send messages to other lightening bugs makes for a beautiful field.

Their lights kind of remind me of God.  He's the light in the darkness around us.  He is shining his light to get our attention and to show us the way to Him.  We can go to His light and become one of His children, or we can ignore the light, or capture it and put it in a jar until the light is no longer there for us to see.  God is always there, but if we ignore Him long enough, He either stops calling to us, or we harden ourselves so much that we don't hear Him and don't see His light calling to us. 

As Christians, we are to be like the lightening bugs, shining God's love all over (hundreds and thousands of us) to lead others to Christ.  We are not to hide our light under a bushel, nor hide it in a jar where it can go out.  But we can be afraid to let it shine, fearful that we will offend someone, or afraid that someone will make fun of us, thinking we are just too weird.  Let that light shine!  It can change the lives of others, getting rid of the bad in their lives and turning them into followers of Christ.

I may have stretched the comparison a bit, but that is how God spoke to me as I watched those lightening bugs.

AGH!  I need to scratch...itch, itch, itch.  I can't stand it!