This poor little cicada met his Maker the other day in PandaJoy's kiddie pool in the backyard. Not sure how long his (or her, I guess) life lasted. All I know is that PJ would not share her pool with him so he had to go.
Texas heat can be scorching in the summer. The past two summers left us wanting to move to Alaska with most temps resting around 105-114 degrees. Fahrenheit. That's the kind of hot that makes your eyelids burn a little when you blink upon stepping outside. There is no use for make-up of any kind since that kind of heat instantly melts it off your skin. Sitting on a leather seat in a pair of shorts in a vehicle that's been locked up for a bit...even with cracked windows...is sure to burn the back of your thighs bad enough for a skin graph. Then just try touching the steering wheel. Might as well stick your fingers right on the bacon in a frying pan to hold it down. 'Bout the same.
That was for two summers in a row.
This year has been relatively mild in comparison with us only logging a few days just over 100 degrees. We've even had several rainy days. Glory. Our church camp had us wearing rain boots and toting umbrellas for the first three days. Kept the temps down to what seemed fall-like. I took a pic with my phone of the temperature showing on the rearview mirror in the Tahoe on the way to camp the Sunday before all the campers arrived the next day and it was literally sitting at a nice and cool 67 degrees at 3:00 in the afternoon!! Even more glorious. Except for afternoon rec time when the pool was closed or the kids just opted to swim in the rain sprinkles sans any lighting, of course. Safety first.
Every year about the end of July through the end of August I always swear that I want to move from Texas to somewhere else. This is my 42nd summer here. No plans to move yet. I still love Texas. Maybe because it's all I've ever known. I've traveled here and there, but this is home. Hot summers and all.
There hasn't been a summer that has passed that I haven't seen a dead cicada or locust or grasshopper or beetle or june bug just like the one in the pic laying somewhere on the ground, feet up, no movement left. When I picked up this particular little guy I was intrigued by the attention to detail on his wings. It made me think of how intricately he was formed and how God made him.
God made every single detail of that cicada.
How?
I have NO idea.
When I start thinking about how God chose to do things or make things or allow things to happen in this world my brain starts to hurt. I get all wonky trying to figure out how dinosaurs really fit into the mix. I think about all the different skin colors and facial distinctions between races. My mind gets super-blown when thinking about infinite space, planets, stars, galaxies, etc. Then when I contemplate how everything in my body works and how our thumbprints are all unique (how He did THAT one is just beyond comprehension) I just sit dumbfounded.
When I'm driving down the highway and happen to look up at a billboard at some word at the exact same time as someone on the radio is saying that very word. Or having learned a new word then SEEING it the very same day in a bizarre random way. Makes my head hurt.
Don't even get me started on my 11:11 occurrences. Nuh-uh. I could have a whole different post about that. Googling it made me wonder why in the world I have my own set of stories about it when it seems that the New Age people have a stake in it. Weird. Made me think outside my bubble.
Anyone who knows me in real life and has seen me not be able to handle something because of how random it is can vouch that I'm telling the truth. I have been known to fall off my chair, lay down on the floor, fling my arms aimlessly around in awe and maybe a few other over-the-top reactions when my brain cannot handle the random incident. Things that appear to be coincidences such as seeing a person I haven't seen in years, but just had a random dream about them the night before seeing them in person. Crossing paths with someone one day then having them pop up unexpectedly shortly after that in a completely different way. Or someone you knew in 2nd grade is somehow fb friends with someone you know currently that lives on the other side of the world....and you see you are mutual friends. (one of my college BFFs had a guy comment on her page and it popped up that he was friends with my BROTHER---none of us live anywhere near each other!!) So random. So detailed.
Here's what really makes me freak: deja vu. I don't even know how to get the little marking above the e, j, a and u on here much less how it works. PandaGirl and I were talking about it just yesterday. She's experienced it already so I was telling her how it sizzles my brain cells trying to figure it out. I love the music artist Chris Rice. His lyrical tales are fabulous. He has one song called Questions for Heaven where he wants to ask God some things once in heaven and one of those is "and what about deja vu?". Like he's saying, "What's up with that, God?". My sentiments exactly. Probably won't matter an inkling once we're there, but man I'd love to know what the heck it is and what its purpose is. I'm thinking it's God's sense of humor. I am aware scientists or psychologists think they have it figured out with some kind of brain glitch, but then I'm not a robot so that theory holds no merit with me. It has to be more detailed than that.
Mentioning a glitch leads my train of thought to computers. Talk about detail!! Only how is it even possible that all the teeny tiny details of pixels and computers' abilities for details are solely based on zeros and ones?
0011000000010001000000111000111.......<<<<< I just wrote the Declaration of Independence right there. In ones and zeros. I don't think I can buy that logic for one binary minute.
One more thing that bakes my noodle: dreams.
I mean, really. What in the world happens during REM sleep that can stir up such musings? Everyone dreams differently, I'm sure, but we can all attest to the weirdness of them, right? One dream will be about something from the day before and make some sort of sense while another can be made up of ethereal, surreal, bizarre, non-sensical images and happenings. At least in mine. Dreaming of someone from my past that hasn't entered my mind in many many years? Stressful dreams that twist a bit of truth into something that just makes no sense at all? Exhilarating dreams that you don't want to end? Flying dreams? Terrifying dreams where you are screaming but no sound comes out?
Oh. Oh-oh-oh.....here ya go.......re-occurring dreams.
Yeah.
That one.
Oh my word.
Those are w-e-i-r-d.
Maybe I'm revealing too much about my dreams. Never mind.
Well, whatever dreams' purpose are whether we ever find out or not it can be said they are detailed.
Should I mention how thinking of angels and demons in the spiritual realm constantly duking it out over me totally freaks me out, but in a good way? Nah. I won't even go there.
Wow. I chased a rabbit. One thought leads to another.
The details. I am so astounded as to how God has painstakingly paid attention to the minute details of me. Me. He knows me better than I know myself.
Maybe with the same precision that he made that cicada's wings he orchestrated how our two daughters would come to us. That took some serious attention to details in many people's lives in order to make those two adoptions happen.
Countless details every single nano-second. Intricacies we never see happen all around us. We are so mindless to how important these details matter in who we each are.
When I get to the places where I doubt God I must remind myself of the details woven together that make up who I am. They just cannot be random. Cannot be. When my experiences cause me to feel ignored by God, forgotten by him, tricked by him, left out from his great plan, betrayed by him.....I have to trust his Word to be true and his attention to the details of who I am and what roads lie before me is for my benefit. God loves me. He detailed every single piece of me. The seen and unseen.
So really, the details of Mr. Cicada's wings and the very core of who I am aren't really all that different. Neither had anything to do with it's own creation yet every detail is precisely how its designed to be.
Ending with this detail from Romans 8:28 brings me great satisfaction and peace......
And we know that in all things God works
for the good of those who love him,
who have been called according to his purpose.
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