I saw a recent headline which read: “Mom saves son from cougar with rag.” That is certainly an excellent tease to get you to want to read on. We’ve learned by now though, that just because the headline reads one way, doesn’t mean that it isn’t written that way in order to tease our curiosity. Many times we’ll read these articles and find out that there’s a twist and even though the statement in the headline is relevant, it may not be “exactly” the series of events.
This time, however, it was. It turns out that there is this Mennonite mom up in northern British Columbia, Canada, who was at the family church during the week to do some cleaning. The kids are out playing and mom goes to get some cleaning supplies. She hears the kids scream and comes running. She runs out and finds her son pinned to the ground by a cougar. The cougar has her mouth opened and the young lads head partially in it. What happens next is the thing that all good mom stories come to. She charges at the cougar and flicks it on the head with her cleaning rag!
What does this ferocious, hungry animal do? Leaps off the child and runs away into the wild! Seems amazing, doesn’t it? I’ve thought about this story all morning and I suddenly realized that any mom, who is willing to take on a live, snarling, man-eating, wild cougar with a cleaning rag, just may know something that you don’t. It makes you stop and think: is she really out gunned, or is she acting like Clint Eastward in “The Outlaw Josie Wales”, where he has gained the advantage before the fight starts. He has his back to the sun, so his opponent is facing it. He chews and spits tobacco to buy time as he is assesses the number of opponents, their number of weapons and their exact locations. Maybe this mom has that same ability. Maybe the cougar was outdone from the start and had the good sense to follow her instincts into the relative safety of the wild, compared to the wrath of a Godly woman armed with a rather deadly cleaning rag, out to save her son’s life.
No one thinks through things like this. They just do them. Looking back, the mom probably wonders what she could have been thinking to take on this animal with only a rag, but on the other hand, she did what she could with what she had.
Sometimes we think TOO much and can often wind up taking no action, because we’re waiting for things to be just right. Maybe all things are possible with Christ after all and just maybe He’s already equipped us with enough to succeed, right now, even if we look down in our hand and only see a cleaning rag! Blessings!

• BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
• « PEACE ON EARTH
• » MINUTE BY MINUTE

• BROWSE / IN Newsletter
• « PEACE ON EARTH
• » MINUTE BY MINUTE