Beta Redemption

It began with routine, the normal cleaning of his tank. And all miracles and tragedies begin this way—in the ordinary grime and rhythm of pedantic life. 

But today, the status quo shifted. The smallest nudge rivets vase and sends it shattered across counter and floor.  His little world crashes, but he is safe, roaming the neighbourhood of a kitchen bowl. Does he know that all has fallen to pieces, that shards of his small realm slit Owner’s hand and draw liquid pain—a clean laceration leaking life? Does he care that his realm cannot be restored, that a new world must be purchased for him to keep living? No, he floats oblivious to the reality outside his three-cups-of-water existence. 

And don’t we insulate ourselves, so we are not touched by the crashes, the cuttings, the cataclysmic upsets of our world? Don’t we cushion and distance and Styrofoam-peanut ourselves into a protected living coffin . . . . safe from the dangers of life? All the while, we ignore the pathetic un-life of our existence.

Sometimes, whether on purpose or “accident”, our perfectly sufficient, boringly normal lives require deep shaking, so we realize that it is not circumstances that define our reality, but Redemption.  

And so it happens, that in the transfer to the newly purchased world, he falls. Falls utterly. Out of water and hand and bowl and all that’s remotely familiar. Falls through suffocating air into a mausoleum—sink drain encloses him on every side, Owner unable to grasp his wriggling mass, he flails onto sieve, suspended, trapped, sentenced to die in the void. 

Owner scrambles for tools, to wrest free the drain nuts. He runs water, washing the victim with life. Finally loosened, the opened drain reveals a terrible problem: two sieves separated by an impenetrable distance, and the dying pet stranded on the further rack.

And what else can be done for the helpless one? Water now spills into bucket under the sink, defacing the immaculate scene. The carnage waits hopeless and still. He will die. He will rot. His corpse eased through the sieve holes by eventual decomposition. And all seems lost. Owner says goodbye and walks away.

 

 

But in the minutes where life ebbs out, LIFE reawakens. And he stirs, perhaps shuddering at inevitable fate looming. But it is enough. Owner sees the struggle, and ignites into furious rescue. Running upstairs to find different tools, rushing back, heedless of the mess and danger; bending low to bring freedom.

And he is found! Owner reaches him, grabs him, and it hurts utterly, but brush with LIFE can hurt more than brush with DEATH.

And he is SAFE . . . though he cannot know it yet. Owner places him in new tank, and he lays dazed and weak in the sweet embrace of water. Paralyzed by terror, ache, and hope realized, he remains immobile. But his gills begin fluttering, and vitality courses miniature in his frame.

Owner puts the world back together, and waits. And Owner sleeps sound, and rescued one rests to life again. And in the morning, he devours offered food, and flourishes his plume in this new world.

And all returns to normal . . . but all has completely changed. And life cannot look the same, because the vase is different, because blood was lost, because tragedy struck and redemption rescued, and life was meant to be lived in this wonder. 

Thomas is a Beta fish, but his life teaches. And him simply living and eating and swimming happy shows off his owner’s goodness. The difference between us and him isn’t so much circumstance or genus . . . it’s choice.

We have CHOICE to sing for our Maker. And Redemption ignites our forever song. 

Photos courtesy of Owner

Letter to a perfect Baby

Dear Baby,

This is the second time in seven days we've been notified by numb, sterile words in cyberspace that a life like yours ended before you entered our world; and that your family missed you terribly.

And we are numb now. Shock and grief and ignorance blind us to comprehending the tragedy. Even if we can make out a hazy picture, we can’t imagine the searing pain, the potent shock, the monstrous sorrow. How can we, unless we experienced it? And who would want to?

You never breathed our air or felt our skin or tasted our food, but you’re living fuller than we ever have. We know God Himself embraced you when you entered His heaven. He kissed your perfect cheek and whispered in your warm ear that He loved you. All our love here is only and echo of His bigger love.

You’re meeting all the little ones who’ve gone before you . . . the 11-week old boy last week, the girl two years ago, my four siblings. They were all smaller than you, but I suppose you don’t measure by size in heaven, do you? So it doesn’t matter how much or little you weigh now.

Little Baby, this grief rips lock and key and bar off our hearts, incinerates every containment device, every shield, and lays us bare. If you only knew how scared and shivering we feel in this burning cold, how exposed and utterly undone . . . you would pity us. Or would you?

We stand helpless. We cannot change this, cannot avert it, cannot fix it. And we hate that, because we want to know, want to help, want to control. This sorrow unearths our souls, and shows us that we are made of dust.

This pain sears and melts our icy sculptures, and reveals that we really are just a vapour.

And Little Baby, we don’t have words. How can we?

The mother in Bethlehem, she didn’t have words either. She was told how much it would hurt to see her Son die, but how could she know, what could she say? She could not have known.

This Son, He died, and no one understood why. He felt pain like you never will.

And His Father, well, He watched Him die. He knew how much it would hurt.

And the only reason we are not destroyed by grief is because this God is our God. How could we go on unless we knew that the One Who is in charge of life knows how much death hurts?

The only way we can go on is because God is the only One Who understands our isolated grief, and can do something good with it.

And the only reason you don’t need to pity us, is because, while we are pathetic—saying the wrong things and standing by stupidly and being so very human—we are not pitiable, because our God gives us resurrection life, and rescues us to know His love, and enables us to whisper “Yes” to Him in our grief.

Little One, though you never knew our love in this world, you already know His love in perfect wholeness. Though you never spoke a word, your life tells us the truth about ourselves, and about God.

It is a gift, and we say “thank You” to God.

And I can hardly wait to meet you, in heaven.