Fish Tales

Hannah’s pet fish died last week. She responded with appropriate drama despite the fact that just days earlier when I’d reminded her that the fish bowl needed to be cleaned, Hannah had stomped her feet and declared, “I’m sick of having a pet I can’t even hold!  What’s so fun about a fish, anyways?”

In an attempt to cheer her sister after Firestick’s passing, Lizzy assured Hannah that she was lucky that she was never required to hold the slippery red fish. “Just ask Mom,” Lizzy said. “Holding a pet fish isn’t as fun as it sounds!” And so our “fish tales” began…

I’m not a lover of animals, by any stretch of the imagination. I appreciate a trip to the zoo once a year and I don’t mind reading Wild Kingdom picture books with the kids, but you won’t find me standing in line to hold the baby alligator at the circus or begging to pet the live cheetah at the State Fair. However, it is amazing what even a cowardly mother will do in a crisis.

When Luke and Lizzy were young, I decided that my preschoolers were old enough to begin pitching in on cleaning day. As I mopped the sticky kitchen floor one morning, I handed Lukas and Elizabeth dust rags and put them both to work in the bedrooms. Moments later, a terrified scream wafted through the hallway. “Mommy! Mommy! Come QUICK!”

Mop in hand, I sprinted towards the bedroom. There, I spotted three-year-old Lizzy hunched over a puddle on the carpet, an upturned fish bowl at her side. “I was just dusting the dresser,” Lizzy explained as the resident Beta flopped frantically on the saturated carpet. “I bumped Charlie’s bowl.” Her wide blue eyes pierced mine. “Is he dead, Mommy?”

“No,” I replied hesitantly, half–wishing he were.

“Can you save him?” Charlie had ceased flopping. His labored gills gasped for air. I wished my husband were home. I wished I’d just dusted the cluttered kid dresser on my own. I wished I’d never succombed to the we’ll take care of the fish by ourselves argument at the pet store months ago.

Lizzy began to whimper. I glanced at her trembling lips and steeled my lurching stomach. In a burst of mommy–heroism, I grabbed the slimy creature and tossed him in the empty fishbowl. Not sure if the little red fish was dead or alive, I raced to the kitchen sink, filled the glass bowl with lukewarm tap water and slumped to the ground.

“Is he okay, Mom?” Lizzy whispered as shell-shocked Charlie lay stunned on the bottom of the fishbowl.

“I don’t know, honey. We’ll have to wait and see.” And so the vigil began. Each time I walked by the bowl which we had left planted on the kitchen counter, I expected to see Charlie floating lifelessly near the top of the water. But by nightfall, the resilient Beta was once again puttering about his little home. Lizzy was set free from her tearful guilt and I had risen to a new status of cool nesswith my five-year-old son who told everyone about his mom’s fish rescue mission.

Eventually we decided that Charlie must be a catfish in disguise. After all, only a fish with nine lives would later dive from his bowl into a kitchen sink filled with dirty dishes and still live to tell about it!  After scooping the scuba-diving fish from beneath the soap suds, I suggested that the kids henceforth clean Charlie’s bowl in the bathtub (or the toiletbowl where I could accidently flush the little fella before he decided to surprise me in the shower one day!)

Our tales of Charlie the fish provided some animated dinnertime conversation last week. But this week as I try to re-prioritize after a crush of deadlines and frantic schedules, I can’t help but spot a bit of myself in the old catfish.  I may not live in a fishbowl, but I, too was made for water. Living Water,that is. Without it, I am a frantic and breathless mother, miserably flopping through my days.

The difference between me and a fish out of water, however, is that I am not at risk of dying quickly when I abandon the springs of salvation. My soul suffocates slowly. Instead of gasping for air, I grasp for entitlement. I exchange wonder for worrry; prayer for pity parties, mercy for selfish-measures. The suffocation of the soul may seem subtle, but without a doubt it is lethal. Nothing slays a fruit-filled life more quickly than a jump out of the waters of God’s word. Without love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, I have nothing to offer my children. No reserves from which to love my husband. I am as useless as a fish out of water.

Thankfully, Charlie’s unusually long life offers me hope. No matter how many times I abandon the Living Water, a Hand from waits patiently to rescue me. All I have to do is ask. “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.” (John 4:10).

The Overflow: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” -Jeremiah 2:13