While I know that I’ve recently been posting about my relationship with the Lord and the things He’s done in my life, I definitely still have a keen interest in animals, nature, and conservation. As I was looking through a brainstormed list of potential blog posts, I ran across one that I loved the idea of sharing! Though the event happened back in 2015, I still remember it like it was yesterday, and I’ve always wanted to write it down. I guess there’s no time like the present!
On May 2nd, 2015, I volunteered at a 5K race called Walk to Cure Arthritis (https://www.arthritis.org/get-involved/walk-to-cure-arthritis/), which was hosted through the Arthritis Foundation. The race was located at the White Water Center, which is a really neat place to hang out for outdoorsy people like myself. My responsibilities included helping set up tents and tables, filling cups and coolers with water, taping the race path. We started setup early in the morning and were there to watch the sun gradually rise over the treetops, revealing more of its rays every few minutes. Knowing a fairly good amount about animals, it crossed my mind that animals — especially reptiles — enjoy coming out of the woods with the sun. It didn’t occur to me, though, that I’d see anything other than a few lizards, birds, and maybe a rabbit or two. I was later proven wrong. I don’t remember exactly what time we sent the first flight of runners on their way, but it was sometime around 9:30 I believe. I was stationed at a water cooler where I was tasked with handing out water to those who needed it. A while after the first group was sent off, the group of walkers started their walk. Not long afterwards, as we continued to hand out water, I started hearing a lot of commotion about something on the path. At that moment I tuned my ears to hear more about what they were saying as the word “snake” became more frequently mentioned. I then distinctly remember hearing one woman say, “There’s a big ole snake over there in the middle of the pathway.” My heart jumped and I put the cup of water I was holding back on the table. Trotting down the gravel path, I looked for either a congregating group of people or the snake they would be staring at. Then I saw a break in the steady flow of people that resembled a rock splitting the path of a stream. Right in the middle was a fairly decent sized snake that I presumed to be a black rat snake: it was the coloration, roundness, and length of the creature that, in combination, led me to believe this. As even more people began realizing what was there in the pathway, I quickly became alarmed for the snake’s safety. Not wanting it to be trampled, killed, or harassed, I made the decision to catch and relocate the creature. There was only one problem: I’d never caught a snake before, let alone a wild one. Granted, I’d handled different snakes often, including my pet ball python, an assortment of snakes that other people had caught, or ones handled by professionals, but there’s just something different about reaching down at one that could easily — and quickly — bite you. I shoved all of this aside in my mind, however, and went for it. I figured I knew enough from both observation and common sense that would allow me to safely catch the snake. First reaching for its tail, I tried to gently gesture the snake over towards the brush. He wasn’t having any of it, though, and continued to realign himself so as to face the gravel path. In a few quick footing adjustments I found myself behind the snake, reaching for the back of its head with my right hand. I grasped its neck, but not close enough to the back of its head: in a lightning-fast strike he turned around and bit my hand. Refusing to be deterred, I squeezed my hand a little tighter and slid my hand up closer to its head so as to secure my grip on the writhing snake. Shocked I stood up straight, snake in hands, people staring. I was smiling bigger than ever; I had just caught my first wild snake! Absolutely elated, I went over to someone and asked them to take my picture (seen below). After showing him off a little bit, I decided that it was about time for me to let him go. I found a pretty secluded brush area and let him go. I learned something pretty cool during this whole fiasco: no matter how prepared I feel to handle a wild animal, I must never feel too comfortable in any given situation. This lesson was important to me because handling animals is something I hope to do long term; it was a humbling reminder that, though we can be prepared and knowledgable about handling animals, we must always be on our toes. It reminds me of a quote from author Mark Ross: “Around wildlife, ignorance is no excuse,” from his book Dangerous Beauty. I hope to carry this lesson with me throughout the rest of my life, and I’m super excited to share the story of this encounter with all of you!
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“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17 I ran across this verse a couple years ago. After reading it, the first thing I thought was, “Wow. It’s really cool that people get to experience that radical change when they come to Christ.” In my mind, that verse became characterized by this set of thoughts. I knew that people change upon receiving Christ, but I never felt it applicable to my own life, partly because I have always been a Christian. Never did I go through a rebellious stage, nor did I have a prodigal son experience that would require me to be changed — made new — by Christ.
Recently, however, my attitude has been changed and this verse is now something I’ve experienced for myself. Anyone who has known me for any amount of time has, I’m sure, quickly picked-up on my deep love of animals. I’ve had it all my life, and it has driven me to the point I’m at today. Up until about February of this year I knew I was going to go into wildlife conservation. It only made sense — in this field I could nurture my love of animals while satisfying my desires to work with and protect them. The best part of it all? Limited human contact! You see, as big as my heart was for people, it was exponentially greater for animals. I often told myself, and sometimes other people, “There are enough people out there trying to cure cancer and end world hunger. I need to help save the animals.” I really felt that the call upon my life was to help preserve God’s gift of nature and its inhabitants, educating people and working with animals. As I mentioned in my previous post, during my spring semester of college the Lord asked many things of me. One of the things He asked me to surrender to Him was the plan I had for my future, the one that included graduate school and working with animals. Surrendering this extremely important part of my life to Him meant that I was 1. putting Him above my greatest desire, and 2. trusting that He was in control of my career and my future, which is very scary for me. Like Abraham did with Isaac in Genesis, I took that which I cherished most up to the mountain as a sacrifice, unsure of whether I would get to carry it back down with me. That was in February/March. It’s July and ’m still waiting atop the mountain, unsure of whether I’m going into wildlife conservation or not. BUT, God has not been absent. The thing is, God has radically changed my heart. My heart, which was previously bent towards animals, has been reoriented. Without my asking Him to — like it really would’ve mattered — Jesus began remolding and reshaping my heart in every area of my life (family, academics, relationship, future, etc.). One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed, though, is that I care a WHOLE lot more about people now than I ever have before. Not that I didn’t care about people before…I just cared more about animals. That’s different, now. The following words came out of my mouth just a few months ago: “The earth is going to die. It’s not going to live forever. The animals are going to die with it. Instead of being worried about that which is going to die anyway, I should focus on helping to save those who have the opportunity to live in eternal life with the Father.” Woah. Anyone who knows what I’m now calling the old me knows that never ever would I have spoken those words. And it’s not to my credit, either. That word came from the heart of the Father for me. The new me — who I am in Christ — is radically different from the old me in so many ways, but this has to be the major difference. God has literally shown me what it is like to be made NEW in Christ! And my, how refreshing it is. What the Bible says about God — about US — is undeniably true. Whether I turn out to be a missionary to Africa or the next Steve Irwin is irrelevant to me. I’m incredibly content with knowing that my heart has been realigned, though I didn’t see the adjustment necessary before. What I now have the pleasure of knowing is that I have been made new in Christ, and that He does, just like the Bible says, make new creations out of us. I’ve been putting off writing this post for quite some time now, partially because my brain completely shut-down with the end of school! I just wanted to take the opportunity to use this post to share a really cool thing that the Lord has done in my life, so here we go!
Back in November I had the opportunity to accept an internship with a Texas alligator rescue called Gator Country. I was elated to have been offered this internship, as it seemed that in a short 7 months my lifelong dream of handling and working with alligators would become a reality. Anxiously I waited, allowing the anticipation of my summer to motivate and drive me through the remaining duration of my first semester at UNCC. VERY long story short, my second semester of college did not go the way I anticipated. The things that motivated me and got me through both my senior year of high school and the first semester of college no longer affected me in the same ways. Conservation, animals, and Africa all seemed much less important to me than they did before, and I found myself struggling to foster any type of motivation or drive for school or for the achievement of my dreams. I was scared of what was happening; everything that I had longed for my entire life seemed to be rapidly slipping from my grasp. And then Jesus showed up. After sharing my dilemma with Brent Campbell, campus pastor of UNCC’s InterVarsity Chapter and close friend, he shared with me that these were signs of an idol being torn down. I was initially reluctant to believe that I had done this, that I had created an idol out of my God-given dream. I’ve always known that this gift was from God, I thought, and I’ve always kept the focus on Him. Turns out, however, that I was more in love with the gift than the gift-giver Himself. Between February and May of 2018 I grew a lot in my personal relationship with God. He took so many things away, freeing me from bondages in which I didn’t even realize I was entrapped. He proved to me firsthand that He is trustworthy in every area of my life, including my family, my academics, my preference to be in control of situations, my relationship with Alex, and, most significantly, my future. God asked me to do things that were hard, but the results of the obedience were more rewarding than anything I could’ve done for myself. After a few months of being asked to give up important things for God, I was in the best place with Him that I’d ever been in. And then on Saturday, April 29, 2018, at 12:27 in the morning, I was reading Brendan Manning’s book Abba’s Child. Out of the blue I heard the Lord say, “Don’t go to Texas.” … Excuse me? I couldn’t understand why He was asking this of me. As a matter of fact, He wasn’t even really asking; He TOLD me not to go. Naturally, I asked why. And, as He so often does, the Lord gave me several reasons that I shouldn’t go to the 3-month internship of my dreams:
6. He wants me to be an example of faith and what it’s like for someone to give something up for Him simply because He says so. I sat at the desk in my dorm room, shocked that God had asked this of me. I was arguably more shocked at the readiness with which I was answered. This was no joke. I went to bed, teary-eyed at even the idea that I might be giving this opportunity up. Sunday morning I woke up foggy-headed and hoping that the previous night had been a dream. I convinced myself that it was just a test of faith, that God just wanted to make sure I’d be willing to give it up. Then I could go! Double-checking with my mentor Kennedy, I asked her to listen for me to see if God had anything else to say. She said, “Kerrington, the Lord doesn’t have anything for me. He needs you to trust Him.” I listened again that night as I was spending time with the Lord. “Don’t go to Gator Country,” I heard Him say, this time more specifically. I sighed, knowing that my decision was made. The next morning I made some hard phone calls, the least of which I wanted to make to my Papa. We planned to spend the whole summer together while I was in Texas, and I was very much scared of having to tell him that I wouldn’t be coming. When I finally called him, the first thing he asked, as I knew it would be, was, “When are you getting out here?” After I explained to him that the Lord told me not to go, Papa was silent for a second. Then he told me, “I already knew that. The Lord told me three weeks ago that you weren’t coming. I was just waiting for you to hear from Him about it.” My jaw dropped to the floor and my eyes teared up simultaneously. It was so comforting to have confirmation from the Lord through my Papa’s words. I felt significantly better after we’d had that conversation, and I was even more confident in my decision to be obedient to the Lord. I can’t say that it’s been easy since I gave that internship up; I’ve wrestled with God about it. I was so ready to go on that grand adventure — or at least I thought I was. God knew that I have a lot more areas to grow in before I'm ready to be spiritually independent. The things the Lord has revealed to me since that night have been incredibly eye-opening. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in the first six months of 2018 is that God is a jealous God, and when things are put above Him in our hearts He will take those things away to demonstrate that He is truly the ONLY steadfast, unchanging thing in our lives. For so long I put my trust and identity in my future career of wildlife conservation, convinced that I would at least always have animals. God proved me wrong, though, and I couldn’t be more thankful that He did. Happy Earth Day!! Today I hope we’re able to celebrate and appreciate the wonders and beauty of the natural world that has been gifted to us by God. Unfortunately, much of our earth is now riddled with different types of pollution, including that of air, land, and water. One way to help dramatically decrease the amount of pollution in our oceans is to use fewer plastic disposable drinking straws. You know the kind: the ones that are found and used at practically every restaurant, whether it’s five star or fast food. According to The Last Plastic Straw — an initiative to alter the nonchalant use of plastic straws that so dramatically affects the environment — about 500 million straws are used daily and discarded in the United States alone (1). The reasons straws are so impactful in our environment and oceans is because it is easy for them to get swept away from recycling bins and trashcans. A jolting statistic shared by Strawless Ocean, “An estimated 71% of seabirds and 30% of turtles have been found with plastics in their stomachs. When they ingest plastic, marine life has a 50% mortality rate” (2). Many animals mistake these pieces of plastic for potential items of prey. With a seemingly infinite access to plastic straws, today’s society heavily contributes to the pollution that is observed and experienced in the environment. Many people aren’t necessarily aware of the impact that straws have, but there are changes that can be made to catalyze the reduction of environmental pollution.
Step 1: Make a personal commitment to stop using plastic straws. Simply saying “no straw, please” when ordering a drink is an action that can easily impact the amount of plastic that you use cumulatively use weekly, monthly, and annually. Step 2: Ask businesses to only offer straws to guests upon request, thus reducing their overall production of plastic waste and preventing an unnecessary waste of straws. Step 3: Expose those restaurants to the array of alternatives to plastic straws, those of which include paper (AardvarkStraws.com), bamboo (Brushwithbamboo.com), glass (BeOrganic.me/), metal (Ecoatheart.com), or silicone (Reuseit.com)! All of these steps are actions that can help the conservation and preservation of the natural world and its inhabitants, including ourselves. With less potential to be affected by invasive plastic straws, sea life — including fish, whales, sea turtles, and birds — can continue to flourish and keep our ecosystems in-check. Though in a big world it may be hard to feel like you’re making a difference, an individual's lifestyle change to stop their use a plastic straws could be the difference between life and death for any number of creatures on our planet. https://thelastplasticstraw.org/ (1) https://www.strawlessocean.org/faq/ (2) I’m currently reading through the book of Acts, and I just recently finished Chapter 14, which addresses Barnabas and Paul’s missions to Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, and finally their return to Antioch. In Lystra Paul was stoned to near-death by Jews from Antioch and Iconium, having been dragged outside the city. “But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city” (verse 20, NIV).
There are two things that really stood out to me from this entire passage. Firstly, Paul was thought to be dead—the Jews dragged him outside of the city gates only after they thought he was dead. But he later GOT UP and walked back into the city, not with his own strength but with that of God. God was with Paul, even when he was near death, seemingly abandoned and disposed of. This stands as a reminder of God’s constant, everlasting presence in our lives, whether we feel Him or not. Secondly, God revealed something to me immediately as I read this passage. Today we often find ourselves fearful of the reactions we will receive from our attempts at ministry, whether it’s telling someone that we are believers or asking someone about their own beliefs. It’s scary, I know, and a lot of times I don’t want to do it. Sometimes God asks us to pray for a stranger or to talk to someone we don’t know, and it can be absolutely terrifying. I know—He’s asked me to do some of these things. Sometimes I do them, sometimes I make excuses and avoid them. We get scared of looking “stupid,” or getting teased because we believe in Jesus. This passage, however, gave me a new source of encouragement. After his stoning, Paul later RETURNS to the three cities, “strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith” (verse 21, NIV). How crazy is that?! Paul returns to the place at which he was nearly killed because he had not completed the work that they were called there to do. Yet we cannot always bring ourselves to invite someone to Bible study or ask fellow classmates about their faith. If Paul could bear to return to the place that he almost died, we can stand to look stupid for Jesus. This was the conviction God laid on my heart earlier this week. So I’ve tried to make the most of this week, inquiring about people’s beliefs and inviting people to Bible study. On one occasion, I was laughed at, but it resulted in a feeling of contentment. I’ve been mocked for the faith, and it’s kinda cool to not be bothered by it, I thought. This scenario didn’t bother me because I knew that I had at least tried. I think God used this specific situation as a test of my faith because the next day the person asked about time and location of Bible study. From this, I encourage all of you to continue strong in the faith, complying more with the things God calls you to. Your faithfulness will result in a greater happiness and in a strengthening of your own beliefs, for it is much more freeing to live in the persecution of the faith than in the bondage of the world. |
1 Thess. 2:2"...but with the help of our God we dared to tell His gospel in the face of strong opposition." Categories
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