Before I start this, I should admit that I am the biggest National Geographic/Animal Planet/any other nature show fan. Go ahead, call me a nerd or geek or whatever. I embrace it! =) I love being able to see animals in different settings including their natural settings. We are surrounded by such natural beauty in this world. I mean we try to harness it by putting beautiful animals like a lion in an enclosure just to see it whenever we want. We're fascinated by it. There was a show on NatGeoWild (yes, it's a channel and you should totally check it out) last night that was doing a special on the Serengeti. It showed hundreds of amazing animals that all live in a relatively small area compared to the continent of Africa. Obviously, since going on a safari in Swaziland, I've been even more curious about African animals because I've seen some close up. Too close for comfort for some...just a side note, if you're ever caught in between rhinos and elephants who don't really like each other and your car stalls, I think you're totally allowed to have a little freak out. Not that I did or anything... ;) ANYWAY, I was watching the special about the Serengeti and I found myself taken with the diversity of animals and the circle of life (you should have seen that coming..) that occurs in Africa in particular. I was thinking of the differences of the animals' lives to that of humans when they showed a clip of a baby elephant taking it's first steps. I couldn't help but laughing at the baby elephants standing up and falling back over and even being pushed over by their older family members - my brothers totally pushed me over as a toddler, I know they did! After literally dying of laughter for about a half hour and looking up countless Youtube videos of baby elephants falling over as they try to walk, something occurred to me: elephants and humans are similar in some ways and different in some other ways (size being one...). The mother elephants helped their babies to take their first steps and used any method to help. My favorite was them using their trunk to lift up the baby while it got it's feet under it. It was so stinkin' adorable! Then you had the other members of the herd who would come over and so nicely knock the baby back over onto the ground. One thing I noticed was that the more the baby got knocked over, the quicker it got up the next time. It learned to adapt to hurdles and hardships just like we have to as well. We do it on a higher thinking level, not just when we're learning how to walk, but it's similar. We come across a hurdle we think we can't get over until we realize we're already over or it or we're crossing it. For me, Christ is the mother's trunk that helps to support me while I'm getting my feet back under me. He has been there through everything in my life and He's who I can count on to always help me through every situation. He's always encouraging and while there are still people and situations that push me over, with His help, I will always get back up. Only I could make a connection between baby elephants falling over and God...this is what Africa does to you, people!
If you want a good laugh search baby elephants learning to walk on Youtube. To get you started, here's a few:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAvnZ8fQawc
Start at 1:16 to miss the actual birth...TIA (this is Africa - a phrase commonly used on my trip to Swaziland because some situations, you just couldn't explain any other way!).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=oQ8R3EyIjQs
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