Unfortunately most of them were unwelcome and uninvited!
First a herd of cows that broke into our yard and chewed up an entire garden! Then a herd of goats who pushed through the ‘fence' chewed up another garden! Then a horse that somehow broke in and couldn’t find a way out, so was galloping round and round the plot!
Yes, the Klipspringers have also returned many times too, but they are not quite so unwelcome (although they are acting like lawnmowers to some of our ground cover plants as they seek out food in our garden when the bush around is so barren just now).
So between all these hungry critters our garden looks quite massacred at present. The bush is dry and the animals are all hungry and desperate and our garden which we manage to keep looking reasonable through recycling all our water is attractive to them. Oh how we long for rain!
However, it was another surprise to discover a Wandering Donkey - actually a few Wandering Donkeys!
For those who are regular readers of the blog, you might already be suspecting I’m not referring to a real donkey, and I’m not! Yes, I’m referring to a butterfly!
I have absolutely no idea why someone would call a butterfly a ‘Wandering Donkey’!
It was a surprise to see it because I had come to think I wasn’t going to see any more ‘new’ butterflies in our garden. The fact that I had found 50 different species already seemed amazing! But yes, here was yet another species I hadn’t seen before!
But my discoveries that day weren’t over. On the same day, I glanced down at another butterfly that had landed about a meter from me and realised it had an underside wing pattern I was fairly sure I hadn’t seen before!
And guess what? Yes, it was another new one for me!
And it is called a Bowker’s Sapphire. We have had one other ‘Sapphire’ in our garden before (the Triemen’s Sapphire), but not this one before - or at least I hadn’t seen it before.
It’s closed wings conceal an amazing surprise that is revealed when the wings open!
These are just two more examples from the butterfly world of the Botswana bush of God’s beautiful handiwork in creation!
Two more reasons to be caused to praise Him and glorify Him and be reminded that if he takes so much care with such tiny critters that we hardly even notice, how much more will he care for us!
But there was a further lesson for me this time. You see, I wasn’t outside with a camera because I was looking for butterfly beauty, I was outside with a camera to have a record of the mess and damage which baboons had done to our thatch lapa roof in our garden by pulling out chunks of thatch all over it. I was in the midst of a difficult situation. I was not even thinking about it being a beautiful situation. But except for the difficult situation, I wouldn’t have had cause to be ‘in the right place at the right time’ to see and enjoy these little ‘beauty spots’ from the hand of the creator, let alone have the camera with me to record it. On the one hand I had destruction and that felt like the main subject of the moment, and yet right beside me there was quiet beauty which God arranged for me to see and enjoy.
God had a reminder for me in this which I needed to learn yet again….that:
the difficulties of life are never devoid of divine activity
God hasn’t stopped being God. God’s beauty and glory are still realities. God’s watchful care, meticulous design and wonderous goodness haven’t evaporated. Though I may not understand all the reasons why he allowed his baboons to wreak havoc on our thatch roof, I can be assured that He hasn’t stopped being God. I may not understand all the difficulties of life, but I can be assured that God is still on the throne, and in his grace he is still present and at work.
I was also amazed that, even in the midst of feeling down and frustrated and a bit overwhelmed by the persistence of this troop of about 40 or so destructive baboons, these couple of little butterflies could lift my heart to levels of joy that far surpassed the baboon battle…because they lifted my heart to the reality that here lies a further metaphor:
- despite the actions of Satan the thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy, there is One who is greater, One who is not always so obvious in the midst of our difficulties, but who nonetheless is real and has purposes of bringing joy and beauty and glory to a world filled with destruction.
So…..may you too be encouraged by the lessons to be learnt from these additional two little butterfly ‘joy bringers’ in God’s creation and join me in giving thanks to our good God who brings such good gifts of joy to us even when we aren’t looking for it!
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