A LITTLE ANT WITH A BIG MESSAGE

Although I’m not a rock climber, after I read this true story written by Josh and Karen Zarandona, it struck me that sometimes there are things that nature can teach us that have spiritual meanings. I hope you find the same when you read what happened on one rock-climbing expedition.

A young lady named Brenda was invited to go rock climbing. Although she was very scared, she went with her group to a tremendous granite cliff. In spite of her fear, she put on the gear, took hold of the rope, and started up the face of that rock. After a somewhat strenuous climb, she reached a ledge where she could take a breather. As she was hanging on there, as others climbed up ahead, the safety rope snapped against Brenda’s eye and knocked out one of her contact lenses.

Well, there she stood, on a rock ledge, hundreds of feet above the ground. Of course, she looked and looked and looked, hoping it had landed on the ledge, but it just wasn’t there. Here she was, far from home, her sight now blurry in one eye. She was desperate and began to get upset, so she prayed to the Lord to help her to find the lens.

When she got to the top, a friend examined her eye and her clothing for the lens, but there was nothing to be found. She sat down, despondent, with the rest of the party, waiting for everyone else to make it up the face of the cliff.

But as she looked out across range after range of mountains, she thought of the verse that says, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.” As she meditated, in her mind she said, “Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me find it.”

Finally, they walked down the trail to the bottom. And there stood a new party of climbers getting ready to start up the face of the cliff. One of them shouted out, “Hey, you guys! Anybody lose a contact lens?” Well, Brenda could hardly believe her ears. So she hollered, “Yes, I did!” But then she could hardly believe what came next. The climber who found the lens saw an ant moving slowly across the face of the rock, carrying it on it’s back!

When Brenda got home she told her father, who was a cartoonist, about the incredible story of the ant, the prayer, and the contact lens. He was so inspired that he drew the cartoon below of an ant lugging that contact lens with a message some believer might have prayed to the Lord if they too were asked to carry what someone else needed badly to find in order to see life more clearly.