measured in inches

My husband snapped this photo of a fist-sized turtle we found on a recent hike of ours. He was so tiny I almost stepped on the poor guy! He was just sitting there, right in the path. Don't turtles know that is dangerous business?!

At first we weren't sure if he was dead or alive, and he looked quite dry and parched, so I gave him a small douse of water from my canteen. That perked him up! I thought for sure he would scurry back to the grass since he was close to the edge of the pathway, but instead, he started slowly following the path. The way he was going did lead to the lake, so I'm sure he was in the right direction, but he had quite a ways to go, and for a little turtle like him, that could be quite a perilous journey!

I looked at my husband and asked him, "should we help the tiny turtle get to water?" My husband was confident in the tiny turtle though, and was sure he would make it there on his own. Inch by inch...(queue the Patch the Pirate song)...

The sky was getting dark with rainclouds as we watched the turtle slowly but surely pad along the pavement. "Go turtle go!" I yelled as we ran off to catch our car before the raindrops started falling on us.

I have a feeling when that tiny turtle reached the water, he was so very proud of himself. Hopefully my words of encouragement helped him! hehe.

I realized one night when I was feeling a bit discouraged that....ding ding ding, epiphany! I'm not the only one in the world feeling that way!! No matter how discouraged I can get to feeling, there are thousands more who are measuring their journeys in inches. Do they have a God to find peace in? Do they have a blog with their sisters (in Christ) to keep them laughing? Do they have letters that they wait expectantly for in the mail from close friends? Does someone pray for them? I hope so.

I hope that when they are close to giving up, that someone comes along and gives them that tiny douse of canteen water they need to keep going.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Splash!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Go tiny turtles, go! Plod on....