Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Sobering Thought

For some time now, when anyone asked me what I wanted for my 70th birthday --(today)-- I've only half jokingly said, "to pet a tiger".

I just watched the 11 o'clock news tonight and heard about three men in the San Francisco Zoo who were mauled by a tiger today. Actually one of them died. The pictures were not pretty. I had even gone so far as to e mail Shambala to see if they ever allowed anyone to pet their tigers. Of course they said no, in a very gracious way. I think the Lord is trying to tell me something! I do love animals of all kinds, but wild animals are wild and who am I to think I have a special connection with His wild animals? That this should happen today on the very day I was secretly hoping my family might somehow have arranged this and I would find an invitation in an envelope for me, is somehow a rebuke to me. God has set His natural laws in place and I must abide by them and be satisfied.

But I did have a great birthday and a wonderful Christmas with many birthday cards and wonderful gifts. More of this in another post. And.... I have the Greatest Gift.

LATER
Please check the comments for this post, in case you misunderstood my thinking here.

4 comments:

Wanda said...

Good Morning Chris...and belated Happy Birthday. You and my husband look wonderful for 70. Everyone has gone back to work, so I'm taking a minute to reply to a few of my favorite bloggers before heading back home.
We've had a wonderful time with the children.
No Tigers, Chris...maybe a stuffed one. That was a sad news item.

kaybee said...

So glad you had a great Christmas, Chris -- and a very happy birthday!

All went well here. One of Boyd's favourite gifts was Monopoly, the board game, but with electronic banking! Everyone gets a credit card, and the banker uses an electronic calculator to update each person's card when they make a transaction. No cash at all!! All the properties are Canadian ie: CN Tower, Yorkville, Niagara Falls etc. We played for five hours last night and Kevin won, by cleaning us all out with his many properties with hotels!! It was great fun!

Mary Bee said...

That is pretty odd to believe that those people were mauled and even died to protect you. We are more of a wild animal than any tiger. They only kill to protect and eat. We kill (as a race in general) for oil, drugs, fun, anger, jealousy, money, you name it. We are the wild animals.

ChrisJ said...

You misunderstand me, Cattycat. No way do I believe that they were mauled and died to protect me! But since it happened, whoever's fault it was, the Lord can jolt my thinking to say, "Forget about that idea of petting a tiger. There are other things you should do that are more important." You're right, we do kill, for all those things you mention and none of that is pleasing to God. In the kind of world we live in, petting a tiger is is a pretty frivolous thing to want to do. Better to donate to the zoo for better care of their animals or even donate to the families of the men, if they were completely innocent in the incident. Sorry if I upset you, I intended more to put myself down.