Playing God is a heavy game <3

I have been away from the Journey a bit this week. We are enjoying spending time with some family who are visiting. After our vacation, I jotted down some posts that had begun simmering in me while we drove home and here is one that I hope you will read with zero judgment. 

Discernment, yes. Judgement, please, no. 

It comes from a morning playing in the sand and surf with some of the people who are so dear to us. It is born from the innocence of children enjoying their seaside play, and adults keeping watch over them. It is a typical ocean visit story, but it sparked something in me that I think of often in this world of knowledge and technology and advancements in science and thought that can place us in troubled waters. 

Our story begins with our second morning at the beach. The purple flag flying each day we were there was a warning that sea life was present and to be watchful. It is the sea creatures’ home, after all. While this area has seen sharks over the summer, it was the jelly fish we had to be avoiding. Several in our group had come in contact with the tentacles the day before and had minor stings. 

Still a large portion of our friends and family were bobbing out in the chest high water and I decided to wade out and join them. I was about knee deep when I noticed a blob floating off to my right. Sure enough, a small jelly fish with incredibly long tentacles was floating towards shore in the gentle waves. 

I called out to the little ones playing back behind me that there was a jelly fish. Our Joel, who like his brothers, has a net in his hand most of his time along the shore came running and scooped it up. He ran to his bucket of water on the beach and dumped it in. 

Kids from our group and others all gathered around in fascination. We are strictly catch and release in these situations, but things escalated quickly. The others grabbed nets and before you could say Jacque Cousteau, we had two more specimens bobbing around in the bucket.

They got the idea to make an aquarium and soon sand was added, and then a collection of the small fish from another bucket.

As I peered down through all the little heads watching the aquatic show, I heard gasps as they realize that the poison that just made a small sting on us was too much for the tiny fish. One by one, the sand at the bottom of the bucket received a deceased silver body. 

Joel spun into action and began trying to salvage the ones who were still swimming. A boy from a family down the way was working to bring new fish to the mix and was quickly recruited into the rescue mission. 

Slowly the whole project took a downward spiral as children and adults realized that we had a situation on our hands with choices to be made. We had three small jelly fish with tentacles entwined bobbing around in a sand bucket. 

If we dumped them out close to shore, the shallows, now crowded with small children, would create high potential for someone to be stung, as the tide would keep them close to shore. Rachel offered to carry the bucket out into the deeper water and toss it, but her children were afraid she would not be able to get away fast enough and she would have a powerful threesome of tentacles near her body. 

Our other option was to bury them in the sand close to shore. No one liked the idea of the demise of these creatures. Also there was concern that someone would step into the hole and get stung. Nothing seemed right and there was much deliberate  conversation among adults as children hovered around asking hard questions and offering their thoughts. In the end, it was a group decision and we opted on the burial at sea. There was a deep hole the kids had dug near to shore, we knew we had to fill it in anyway so we could, ironically, save the sea turtles. 

None of us felt good about any of this, and it reminded me of something I have experienced, something I see others having to deal with and a fact of life in this modern world. 

Sometimes we have to make decisions that put us in the position of playing God. 

Infertility can be overcome with the benefits of research. An unwanted pregnancy can be washed away by a procedure. We receive a diagnosis of death, but can choose a path to cheat it. We endure a treatment for cancer and find out later that it causes a different kind of tumor. 

My father’s life was saved in his 70’s with the technology of an artificial valve and a skilled surgeon. The valve held strong as his mind failed and we watched him suffer the slow death that is the curse of Alzheimers. 

We can end the suffering of a beloved pet. We can end the suffering of an aged parent. We can keep someone alive with machines and then be the one who has to decide when they are disconnected. 

It is a heavy weight we have been given, this being stewards of God’s creation. 

It is the wise who seek Him as we are called to make decisions about life and death. 

It is the humble who realize that even as we choose, He is still Sovereign.

It is the most grateful who understand that when we choose unwisely, He is still faithful and HIs grace and mercy extend beyond our understanding. 

We have been given much power in our humanity and yet this power should make us feel the most helpless.

We need His guidance, His wisdom and His grace and mercy as we move through our days here on planet earth. 

To know that Jesus chose to lay down His life for us; to understand that He was not killed; but gave up His life for us…this is heavy too. 

The only one who really had the right to play God, was God. And His choice was to save us from ourselves. 

Blessings, my friends.

You are dearly loved <3