I Don't Need a Gruffalo

In spite of the fact that the ages of all three of my children end with "teen," I still enjoy reading children's books.  Perhaps vividly colored pictures and brief sentence structure provide a welcome respite from small black letters numbering in the hundreds on white pages with no pictures.  

I enjoy a good story; children's literature authors know how to craft such stories.  Julia Donaldson (author) and Axel Scheffler (illustrator) joined forces over twenty years ago to craft what is one of my favorite stories. 

The Gruffalo takes the reader on a journey with a mouse.  Along the way, the mouse (not given a name) encounters other animals that, from a mouse's perspective, instill a healthy yet troublesome sense of fear.  Natural predators make their way into the story - fox, owl, and snake.  In order to protect himself in the presence of his foes, mouse describes to each of the three the physical attributes of a made-up-on-the-spot creature - "a gruffalo."  The gruffalo, according to mouse's imagination, possesses such things as "terrible tusks," "terrible claws," "turned-out toes," and "a poisonous wart on the end of his nose."  You get the horrifying picture!  Mouse "created" a creature to protect him from foes and fears.  

Perhaps Donaldson, as she crafted The Gruffalo thought of how people act a lot like her mouse.  If not, I sure did as I read it.  I thought about how we "create" things to protect ourselves.  Don't we?

Personas
Embellished resumes
"Safe" places (isolation, addiction, dependence, distraction)

Yet we need not create anything.  Our Creator already stays with us when we trust Jesus as we encounter the foxes, owls, and snakes in our lives. 

Jesus, rather than terrible claws, has nail-scarred hands.
Jesus, rather than a poisonous wart, has a welcoming smile.

We, along with David, can say . . .

"Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil for [God] you are with me."

#ordinarylives

Donaldson, Julia. The Gruffalo. Great Britain: Macmillan Children's Books, 1999.