The Croods

I slid my leg across the expanse of bed, crossing the vast dry desert in search of human contact. Finally my leg finds his, and luxuriously I sprawl it across him.

Surreptitiously I slide my leg around, first just a little.

Then a little more urgently.

He looked away from his book and gives me a questioning look.

“What are you doing”?

“I am scratching and sharing my Chiggers, ok?”

A girlish scream erupts from my normally brave husband. “HEY HEY” he shouts, “You can’t do that”.

“See, here is Grandpa chigger of the whole bunch”. I show him a huge red bump under the elastic band of my underwear. “and here, this one is almost surely poison ivy”. I show him a set of raised bumps among the hills and mountains of my chigger family that apparently moved in.

I wasn’t even in grass. I didn’t even walk through the grass. But I know how they found my soft, plump flesh. Oh yes, for sure I know.

We shall call the chigger family the Croods just for ease of story telling, not that I mean any disrespect to the actual Crood family born three hundred and sixty million years ago who spent their days chasing things and nights in a cave. The Croods on our little farm are much tougher than the Croods from the movie.

So a few nights ago, my husband and I sat outside on our new front porch steps and watched our two youngest sheep pelt across the grass where they spied their Grandpa sitting in his yard fixing a hole in the ground. Apparently the Croods were watching from the side lines, their beady little eyes lit up with excitement. “Now children listen” said the Granddad of them all, “the goal is to bite into the soft flesh and burrow deep. You will die in there, but you will be happy as you die”. One little Crood raised his hand. “Do we bite into the baby or ride him?” “Good question” Granddad huffed, “the baby is too small to comfortably go deep, and the other one on the steps looks too bony, lets go for the plump one with her legs exposed”. There was a cheer from the grass as the Croods stared at me laughing and talking on the steps, my innocence to their plan just adding to their excitement.

As my baby toddled past they leaped up his legs and hung on. A few of them fell off when he took a tumble under the apple tree, but Granddad encouraged all within earshot to be patient as he climbed the steps and finally came close enough to their prey. With glorious shouts of victories they transferred from him to me and started happily burrowing. Perhaps I absentmindedly scratched my ankle once, and perhaps I uncomfortably shifted when Grandad discovered my elastic, I cannot remember. I only remember waking up the next morning covered in tiny mountainous terrain all over my legs.

I am currently doing nothing at all for the chiggers. Although I briefly considered doing something. Growing up on a farm having vast acreages of poison ivy covering my skin more often than not, prepared me for the chiggers I would encounter in my adulthood. As a teenager, I eventually made myself immune to poison ivy. It was entirely accidental. As we normally did in the summer time, my youth girl friends and I would often go camping at least once a year. This particular year, I did not realize when I spread my sleeping bag that it was in a bed of poison ivy. I woke up the next morning, out of my bag, in the poison ivy. Literally sleeping on top of a carpet of it. Of course I got poison ivy, and badly too. I had to stay in my room for days because I couldn’t get dressed. From that day on and for about 10 years I was immune. I even tested it by pulling poison ivy from flower beds with my bare hands, and nothing. I get poison ivy again, but never much at a time. Tiny spots here and there that hardly bother me.

But Chiggers, I am not immune to. No sirree bob.

Chiggers love me.

The soundtrack from Into the Woods comes to mind. The part of wolf and Little Red Riding Hood, If you have never seen that part, I would suggest you watch it. The sheep and I almost memorized that song. It starts off with.. look at that flesh, pink and plump……

I must leave you now, with my chigger story churning around in your mind. You came for a bit of encouragement, or perhaps you knew me once, years ago, and you are here merely to see what kind of a person I am now. Instead you are left with a Chigger story.

Nothing but a chigger story.

For that my pink and plump flesh apologizes.

You have been let down, and not like Paul in the basket outside the city. No, you were rudely dropped all the way to the ground without the gradual stopping that you thought must surely happen.

Even this is good for you. You see, when you put someone on a pedestal, you will find quickly that your faith wavers the minute they are no longer perfect. I can assure you, my imperfections stand out over my life like my little Crood village on my legs. You do a grave disservice to your very human friends when you insist on perfection.

Jesus does not demand perfection, his yoke is easy, and his burden is light. He walks with us down the path. When we step off the path for a smoke break, he is there with you. When you see someone in a gas station putting $10 of fuel in their car, and you secretly pay for a whole tank for them, he is there. When you drive down the road or change your baby’s diaper, he is there. He is even there when you are mowing the yard. Basically, you may as well talk to him and enjoy the relationship because he says he will never leave us nor forsake us.

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to have such an unshakable faith? Or why they don’t seem to ever question God? The only difference in them and you is they have a real relationship with their God who is with them always.

We talk to him.

We ask him questions.

We read the book he wrote for us.

We know he is good because he IS good, and his goodness does not rest on the actions of a wicked and degenerate generation that is reaping the natural consequences of their actions.

The more you know him, the more you love him. The more you love him, the more effortless serving him becomes.

We know these things the same way we know that you are 5’2” and plump, or that you are 6 feet tall and don’t like brussel sprouts. I know this the same way that I know that my legs are covered in the Croods.

BTW. I gave my husband a raging case of chiggers and poison ivy.

“This is not possible” google says, “the chiggers don’t burrow inside your plump, pink flesh to die”.

“Well” sez I, "then someone please tell me whats happening that our “chiggers” leap from person to person, sharing the discomfort liberally among all?”

My husband wasn’t pleased with me, but he didn’t get to air many of his grievances thanks to my dissolving in helpless, braying laughter anytime he pulled his pant legs up to miserably scratch and complain.

I laughed until I cried.

I laughed until I my children started to laugh.

I laughed until he laughed.

Together we laughed until our bellies hurt.

I recommend it.