Is it worth the cost?

Marge and I spend time in front of our house at the picnic tables in the mornings and in the evenings. We have a fan going outside if there isn't any breeze. But there are these little bitty nasty sweat bees that just bug the heck out of us. They are maybe a quarter-inch long at most, and they are tough. A little swat won't kill them. They are about the only bug that makes a welt on me for some reason.

A friend of ours says he makes a circular motion getting closer and closer to squishing them. I have found that when they are about to bite they lose their wariness and concentrate on the bite and the nibble from us. I find it really amazing that for so small a reward they kind of just throw their life away even if it's just a sweat bee. So for the promise of a bite they give up their life.

Made me think about critters in general how when the temptation or the desire or the hunger is great enough they lose their natural senses, or wariness, or fear, so to speak. Not real smart, but it's true. Old mature buck deer lose their wariness during the rut. But then the same old deer can be lured in using grain or salt or some flakes of alfalfa hay. Trappers use baits of all kinds to lure animals into their traps. I swear, not really, but some eateries smoke their food and seem to blow the smoke smell out into traffic to entice passersby. Several weeks back, our church held a rummage sale and had a food truck set up there as well. Just the smell hooked Marge and me, so we had to try some smoked pork.

Sometimes this willingness to sacrifice all seems to come naturally. It's especially true with maternal affection. An old mother bear will seemingly forfeit her life if her cubs are threatened. An old mother cow will take you on if you mess with her baby. A human mother will if you mess with one of her children. When we were living in Wilmore, Kentucky, Marge walked into the boy's room in the middle of the night and she could see a peeping tom looking in the window. She let out a blood curdling scream, and I'll bet she scared that pervert out of a dozen years of life. Heck he might still be running. One doesn't mess with a mother and one of her babies, whether it be a dog or cat or pig or bear or whatever.

One bird that I grew up around was a killdeer. The mother would form a nest in the grass in Nebraska, and it was there she would lay her eggs and hatch out her babies. When we'd got close to the nest the old mother killdeer would act like her wing was broken or she was crippled, and she would do her best to lure us away from the nest. This was her way of protecting her nest or babies.

This protective instinct will cause many to become police officers or to join the military or to become social workers and a lot of other fields. Many will dedicate their whole life to protecting and serving. Some will lose their lives in that service.

Some who dedicate their life as well as risk harm that we never think of are the missionaries who travel to distant lands to work with natives there. One who is a friend and veterinarian traveled, I believe, to Africa to help the natives with their cattle. Another good friend traveled to Africa to educate the natives in regard to irrigation. Some take their families to distant lands and settle there and learn the language well enough to put it on paper and translate the Scriptures into their native dialect.

There are a multitude of others who in spite of the cost and the risks offer their lives in service. A special thank you to each and every one of them.