Much to the cricket’s misfortune, our cats found him this morning has he scampered across the living room floor. The kitties love critters like him and will creep across the room next to him, batting him when he plays dead and lightly chewing on him as if trying to revive him, his legs and pieces breaking off along the way. I didn’t mean to but I assigned him a name – Charlie.

The kitties are indifferent to Charlie’s survival. To them, he is a fun friend who will soon become a snack. THey have no interest or desire to sustain any life but their own. After Charlie ends up in one of their tummies, they’ll proceed to take theyr usual morning nap in the sun.

For now, Charlie is alive – and I hurt a little to watch him struggle across the floor.

See – my heart is magnetically drawn to displays of struggle from even the most insignificant creatures – this morning’s being a cricket, with one leg and half an antennae left attached to his body. He struggles to untangle his remaining bits from the wool fibers of ouro rug while seemingly coordinating his survival plan, strategically timing his “playing possum” intervals to when the cats are looking away.

Poor Charlie is really trying. I’m rooting for you, Charlie.

I root for Charlie because I see me in him – tangled, limping, body deteriorating more with each inch of ground gained, silent, alone, tiny, leaving a trail of loss and damage behind him, growing slower, slower, slow.

I root for Charlie because I want me to make it, as beat up and disabled and tired as I am.

Watching him from across the room, I think these things and wonder: is struggle a distinction of our fallen world? Did Adam and Eve struggle before the fall?

Webster defines struggle (verb) as:

1. to make strenuous or violent efforts in the face of difficulties or opposition
2. to proceed with difficulty or with great effort

Did Adam have to make strenuous efforts in his work in the garden? Did Eve face any difficulties in helping him? Was difficulty or great effort required of them to survive? Did “hard work” mean something different in the pre-fall context?

God is always working, and work is good – but nothing is ever hard for him, and at no time does God struggle. I tend to believe that before the fall, Adam experienced the same in the context of struggle and that while he had lots of work to do, at no time did he struggle with difficulty.

BUT – struggle was required when faced with temptation. Right? And temptation not acted upon is not sin; in other words, temptation was pre-fall….

Much to meditate on today.