A Beautiful Sound

Jenelle and I lead the junior youth at our church. We meet every Wednesday evening and usually have a short bible study or object lesson followed by snacks and games. Sometimes it's "knockout" on the basketball court, or when the weather isn't cooperating we'll play ping-pong or other indoor games. We have a fun group of kids and it's been great hanging out with them.

This past weekend we had a campout. We fished and played cards, slept in tents, and enjoyed sitting around the fire together. One of the highlights of the weekend was having Kevin Dodge come and share some campfire time with us.

Kevin is a biology teacher at our local community college. And even though it's a small college his presence helps it to have a really great Natural Resources and Wildlife Technology program.

Kevin grew up in Kansas and apparently spent more time with the frogs, birds, and owls in the area, then he did people. Kevin can perfectly mimic so many of the critters that we hear at night. We pretty much take them for granted and oftentimes we don't even notice them, but when we do take the time to listen, they make a beautiful sound. Luckily for us, Kevin must have spent some of his growing up time with people too, as he really connected well with the kids! (and us adults)

Here's the recap;

Did you all know that one of the most common night sounds that we hear around here comes from the yahoo?

It sounds something like this; HEY DUDE, or GIT’ER DONE, or YEE-HAW. 

But once the yahoos call it a day, there are lots of neat critters that come out for the night and do their thing, living the life that they were meant to live, and all the while filling up the night with beautiful and different sounds. Different frogs and toads and owls and insects, all singing their own little song. As Kevin says about each one, "and that's a beautiful sound."

And together they all make a beautiful symphony! 

And each of us make our own little beautiful sounds in life. We can't all be the barred owl or the whippoorwill, but we can all do our best at what we were created to do. And when we do it well together, we create this beautiful symphony, or picture of what God intended for it to look like originally.

Jenelle and I live in a quieter part of the world. Sometimes it almost feels like we're in the wilderness, and I love it. As I'm sitting here writing, I'm hearing a woodpecker beating on a tree outside, and I can't help but hear Kevin's words, "and that's a beautiful sound". 

And as I go about my day and you go about yours, I hope that someone upstairs is looking down and saying, "now that is a beautiful sound"!