A Voice From . . . Beyond??

I found a frog in my bathtub this morning. Some of you are laughing right now because you know exactly how I feel about those vile creatures, but nevertheless it was there, in all it’s hopping glory, ready to attack. Well, those of you who know me can probably imagine exactly what happened. I screamed. Not an “Ack, there’s a frog” scream, but a blood-curdling, shake the ceiling, “someone come and save me now” scream. The latter is exactly what happened. My dad came running down the stairs yelling “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” He was imagining the worst. I told him, with a shaking voice “There’s a frog in my bathroom!” And, sweet, wonderful Dad that he is, he caught the vile (and I’m quite certain, frightened nearly to death) creature and released him in the backyard. (For all you bleeding-heart animal rights activists, rest assured that he didn’t kill it, although I wouldn’t have tried to stop him.) Needless to say, I did shower in my parent’s shower this morning and have only been back in mine to get my stuff out of there until I’m certain the area has been de-frogged.

The experience is comical, I know. We laughed about it later. More importantly, it brought up a very special memory. You see, when I was in high school, my friend Kelli and I spent a lot of time playing a little game we liked to call “Frog Bashing.” It sounds terribly cruel, I know, but we did it anyway. I won’t go into detail, but basically it consisted of counting how many frogs we could hit with our tires in one night. It was not an easy task. Those things are surprisingly quick.

Anyway, I call it a special memory because, you see, my friend Kelli left this world last week. Since then, I’ve found it difficult to write about it, talk about it, or least of all, blog about it, because I have been so broken and full of grief that her life has ended while she was still so very young.

However, this morning, after the moment had passed and the air was clear again, Dad made the statement, “I bet Kelli sent you that frog.” Now, I don’t really know where I stand on the idea that our loved ones can speak to us from the life after this one. Personally, I’ve always held the belief that they are so occupied with their worship and adoration to God, that they are no longer concerned about the temporal things of earth. However, I do believe that somehow God sees fit to send messages that give us hope. So, I suppose that in a small way, maybe from somewhere beyond the realm of my understanding, it is possible that Kelli could have been trying to speak. Greater still, I believe that it is even more possible that God was trying to let me know that the memories I have of my friend will always live in me, will always be there to surprise me, and perhaps might even bring some comfort to my grieving heart.