June 16, 2025 - Locusts

     I am sitting in the Cancer Center this morning awaiting chemotherapy.  I am recovering from the tick issue, though not back 100%, but well enough to resume chemo.  After today’s treatment I only have three more before going back to Mayo Clinic in the fall.
 
     Some of these blogs have been more than heavy, as they should have been.  This one not so much.
 
     Parts of the US have been inundated with cicadas this summer, including Central Kentucky and Beaver Trail in Lawrenceburg.  I will admit that not quite as bad as on Harrodsburg Road where Dave and Nancy Alger live.  Nancy sent Teresa pictures of trunks of trees covered with cicadas. 
 
     As many as 1.5 million cicadas can appear in any given acre.   I haven’t seen that many!
 
     My recollection is that it hasn’t been 17 years since the last time we dealt with them.  Maybe some of them can’t read a calendar.  Some of them may be on a 13-year cycle.
 
     I have learned some things about these pesky insects.
 
● They can’t swim.  I fished lots of dead ones out of our pool. 
 
● They can fly faster than my zero-turn mower. 
 
● Their favorite landing spot is an uncovered neck.
 
● They can get in your house without you knowing it.
 
● Their carcasses stink.
 
Hopefully they will die off by the end of June.
 
     I couldn’t help but think of what it must have been like for the Egyptians when God sent the Plague of Locusts on Egypt.  They covered the ground until it was black.  They must have filled the houses.  I am sure that they could fly faster than an Egyptian lawnmower.
 
     Had I been Pharaoh I would have thrown in the towel and let the Hebrew children grow after the locusts invaded the land.  A hard heart can make you do stupid things.   It can also lead to even greater judgment as the Egyptians found out.
 
     I will rejoice when the cicadas are gone.  I even more rejoice that life’s challenges haven’t hardened my heart.
 
     God looks up my heart and yours.  I hope what He sees is pleasing to Him.