The little guineas were so cute! All 24 of them, looking like grey pearls as they huddled together in their cage. Howard had agreed to raise them for a friend who would give my husband 12 of them for his own.
The big cage which we had used many times before for baby chicks and ducks was readied with all the accouterments of watering and feeding necessities carefully placed on the fresh straw covering the cage floor.
My wanna-be farmer was ecstatic. He had wanted guineas for a long time. Yesterday morning he had a spring in his step when he went out to feed and check on them as he did every day. A little later he returned with a haggard look of disbelief on his face.
"They're all dead!" he announced incredulously. "All the little guineas are dead! One's head was gone, some looked chewed up and the others were just lying around!"
Oh, no! Nothing had ever breached the cage before! Howard thought maybe a snake got in, but we couldn't be sure. He resolutely called his friend with the bad news. Ironically, he told Howard a goat he had just bought was dead the next day!
I couldn't help thinking of the scripture in 1 Peter 5:8 which says, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour."
I know in our fallen world the nature of animals is to devour. I love the scripture of future promise when these things shall be changed, as in Isaiah 11:6-9:
"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra's hole, And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord As the waters cover the sea."
What a day for which to look forward!
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