A Turtle Visited Me Today

OK, so you might see the title and wonder what on earth is going on. Well as it says, a turtle came to visit me at home today! It was around 11:30, warm, sunny and perfect outside. My husband was out someplace. When he got home, he noticed a turtle sitting in the grass at the side of the house, by the garage. I was not sure what to expect, I thought he must be joking or mistaken. He was not. There in the grass was a turtle, resting. Well my first thought was, where did it come from but as we have a creek at the far end of the yard, I reasoned it must have crawled up from that direction. Either that or there was another race going on and there was a hare somewhere around also! There was no harm in being certain, so I looked around. There was no hare in sight, so this was not that race - the one where the slow turtle won against that speedy hare!!

I got the camera and recorded the event for my sons. Zac in particular will be sorry to miss this visit. I am not too, too sorry. He would probably want to keep the turtle and I would have had to say no. Pictures would have to suffice. So I snapped away. While I was taking the pictures and enjoying the presence of the turtle, I got to thinking about this most unusual visitor that my Heavenly Father had created and now had sent across my path. Apart from the simple joy of seeing this creature up close and personal for the first time in my life and the sheer delight I was receiving from its visit, were there some life lessons, some divine wisdom for me?

I got back indoors and started to see if I could find out anything about my guest. My photos seems to match the pictures and descriptions of the Eastern Box Turtle and there are a few characteristics of this particular creature that I find impressive and instructive. For example they are long-lived, an average 30 years or longer, they are slow to mature and they are one of the slowest reproducing species in the world. These are interesting enough really but there are a few that I want to comment on in a bit more detail as the Spirit leads.

Firstly, box turtles take 7 years for their shells to mature. When the shell matures they can be shut completely to exclude predators. Now I like that very much. Apart from the number one, the number seven is used most often in the Word of God. And seven is the number that represents Completion, Divine Perfection.

The Book of Revelation uses this number throughout. For example we see SEVEN churches, SEVEN Spirits, SEVEN stars, SEVEN seals, SEVEN trumpets, SEVEN vials, SEVEN personages, SEVEN dooms, and SEVEN new things. Everything in life revolves around this number. In Revelation alone, it is used 54 times. So it seems that the whole of creation, from beginning to end, Genesis to Revelation is founded upon the number SEVEN. It stands for the SEVENTH day of the Creation Week recorded in Genesis and speaks of the Millennial Rest Day in the Book of Revelation.

In our walk with the Lord Jesus, we must live, move and have our being in Him, in order to be perfect even as He is Perfect. Our perfection and completeness is bound up in the God of the number seven which denotes Spiritual Perfection. The box turtle's shell is capable of shutting out predators and it is only when we are hid in God, through Christ Jesus that we too can shut out the attacks of the enemy and overcome sin. It is perfection that our Lord tells us to strive for, to 'Be', if we would be like Him. Sin, sickness and shame has no success against the perfection of divinity. The turtle surely came as a heavenly messenger to me today - I will tell you about the other characteristic that has really inspired me today, in my next blog later on ...

Love & Blessings