A little lost soul (ObG#9)

"Most, I fancy, have discovered that to be born is to be exposed to delights and miseries greater than imagination could have anticipated; that the choice of ways at any cross-road may be more important than we think; and that short cuts may lead to very nasty places."
~CS Lewis

A.Rogers 2008

This is one of my favorite pictures! We were at Sand Hollow Reservoir and came across, of all species, a tomato horn worm!?!? Exactly what we thought. Where are the tomato plants at Sand Hollow?
Sometimes I feel like this interesting little fellow. I'm crawling along on the path of life, munching on some juicy, green leaves, searching for that perfectly plump, perfectly red, perfectly juicy tomato, and not so much paying attention to where I am headed, and BAM!, from out of nowhere I realize, I have no idea where I am. This does not look familiar at all. What am I going to do? All I CAN do is hang on for dear life and hope that someone jumps in to rescue me.
There was a time, when I was eight years old, that my family went on a weekend trip to the mountains of Lake Arrowhead, California. While we were there, my great aunt decided to teach my older brother and me how to whittle simple shapes out of bark with pocket knives. One morning, my brother and I went out into the wooded areas behind the cabins to look for some good pieces of bark. All of a sudden, I realized he was not with me anymore and I panicked. I had no idea where I was. He, however, has a photographic memory and could have worked his way out of a labyrinth of trees. I felt like I was never going to be able to find my way back. Everything looked the same, and nothing seemed familiar. "Darn it," I realized, "I should have paid more attention when we were walking out here."
My instant response was to wander around crying, but after a while, I got a little cold. I am a slow processor sometimes and it took a while for me to consider saying a prayer, but finally I realized it would be a good idea. Well obviously, I made it back, when the Lord sent a kind man in my direction who could see that I was distraught. Luckily, although I was too foolish to note my pathways out to the woods, I was blessed with "book smarts," and knew the address/number of the cabin we were in and he knew where it was.
I think back on that situation a lot, still, in different contexts of life. It could have turned out much worse. I could be like this little guy-completely lost, and nobody knows where I came from. I could have ended up on the evening news, but I didn't.
So, I guess what all this means, is that we need to always be alert and make sure that we are always paying attention to where we are and listening to the Spirit as He tries to guide us, warn us, and hopefully deliver us back to safety (luckily, the Spirit told me that the older man was a nice man and a "good" stranger.)


I played around with the brightness, contrast, and midtone. I love the contrast of my mom's red shirt and the red sand with the bright green of the worm.