Phil, wow!!! Isn't it interesting what God can show us through something 
that to some might seem small.  I'm definitely not one of those who would 
think the turtle incident is small while reading it I was about to cry 
because I thought you might say the turtle died. But again isn't it 
interesting what we learn of ourselves?


Lelia
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 1:27 PM
Subject: Turtle


>A Shell Of A Mess
>
>
> By Phil Scovell
>
>
>
>     "Dad?"  I think we are going to have to wake mom," my
> daughter said.
>
>     I was seated behind my desk typing in response to an email.
> "What for I asked; looking at my watch.  "It's 1 o'clock in the
> morning.  She just went to bed 45 minutes ago.  What's wrong?"
>
>     "Something is wrong with one of her turtles," she replied.
>
>     "Her turtles?" I said with disbelief.  "What's wrong with the
> turtles?"
>
>     "Well," Gretchen began, "I check the turtles every morning,
> or just about every morning, when I get up and walk through the
> utility room."  They both looked ok this morning when I saw them
> but Mike said he saw one on it's back tonight."
>
>     "On his back?" I repeated.
>
>     "Yeh.  I said that didn't sound right because I have never
> seen either of the turtles on their back.  So I just now went and
> checked and they are not on their backs."
>
>     "Are they ok, then?" I wanted to know.  Why did you say we
> should get your mom up?"
>
>     "Well, the one that was on his back earlier today has his
> head stuck inside his shell."
>
>     "What?" I said with amazement.  "How could that be?"
>
>     "I don't know," Gretchen said, "but it is.  I supposed he was
> on his back earlier, trying to find a position that would free his
> head or something, " my daughter said.  "It appears his head is
> somehow caught on the skin around his head and neck."
>
>     "I wonder why that would be?" I said; picturing the turtle
> in my thoughts.
>
>     "It appears," she said, "that the skin around his head and
> neck are very dry or something.  I don't know if that has
> anything to do with it or not."
>
>     "Man," I sighed.  "I don't know what we could do to help
> him."
>
>     Gretchen said, "Mike and I are using a Q-tip with a small
> amount of Vaseline on it to press gently around his head and what
> little of his neck is visible.  Hopefully that will be enough to
> give him lubrication to pop his head out."
>
>     When she went back downstairs to attend to the turtle in
> distress, I started to pray for the turtle.
>
>     A few moments later, she came running back upstairs and said,
> "Dad!  It worked.  He popped his head free and is moving around."
>
>     "I said, "He's probably hungry, if he hasn't eaten all day,
> so go get some meal worms and go down and put some in front of him
> to see how much he can move around and to see if he eats any."
> Meal worms are amount a favorite food of turtles.  You can't You
> can almost teach a turtle how to do back flips if you offer them
> meal worms for a snack.  By the way, turtles, although normally
> slow, can move faster than you can possibly imagine when you toss
> a grasshopper or some crickets or meal worms into their aquarium.
>
>     She came back upstairs later and said that the turtle gobbled
> them down as fast as she could dump them into the aquarium in
> front of him.  "He really went after them, too, so he must be ok
> if he can move that quickly,"  she concluded.
>
>     "Well, it would appear," I said, "he is going to be ok, then,
> I guess," and so he was.
>
>     We determined later that the flooring we had switched to in
> the bottom of the aquarium was making it more difficult for the
> turtles to crawl to their swimming pool, if you want to call it
> that, and it seems likely that only one of the two turtles could
> make it into the water.  This is likely the cause for the second
> turtle to loose internal lubrication and somehow got his head and
> neck stuck inside his own shell.  We have since fixed the flooring
> to make it very easy for them to climb into their pool of water.
>
>     If you are not an animal lover, this story will have little,
> if any, meaning to you.  I mean, after all, it was just a stupid
> turtle.  Who cares about turtles.  My wife does.  I sort of enjoy
> them, too, and had a big Arkansas pet turtle that I caught while
> on a vacation when I was a kid.  Furthermore, my wife was born
> and raised on an Iowa farm.  Animals are a way of life for her.
> So, the old axiom must be true; "You can take the girl out of the
> farm but you can't take the farm out of the girl."  Thus it is, we
> have a zoo at our home and always have.
>
>     This current event had a strange effect upon me.  For the
> first time in my life, I felt sad for the turtle.  Plus, I knew my
> wife would be disturbed and saddened that one of her turtles died
> during the night.  I thought of the little turtle on his back as
> he tried finding a position where he was able to free himself.  I
> realized, of course, he was just a cold blooded reptile and if he
> died, it should not have any discernable effect upon me but
> something had touched me deeply.  When I prayed for him, I
> thought, I was mostly praying for one of my wife's pets because of
> her love for her animals.  Yet, deep down inside, something else
> was going on inside of me and I didn't know what it was.
>
>     As the days passed, the thought of the trapped turtle in his
> own shell continually returned to my thoughts.  I just considered
> the memory of his plight a loose connection to my own experiences
> and with others with whom I pray who often express being trapped
> in some way or other.  Something, on the other hand, bothered me
> deeply and something I couldn't see spiritually.  I let it go for
> several days until I couldn't take it any longer.
>
>     Walking into my office, I sat down in a recliner in a corner
> and began to pray.  I focused on the turtle, the words spoken that
> night, and my personal feelings that surfaced.  I examined the
> feelings relating to how my wife would feel when she found out
> something had happened to one of her turtles.  Nothing was there
> but normal concern for her feelings of loss if the turtle had
> died.  I finally focused on myself but I could locate nothing that
> seemed applicable to the situation.
>
>     "Lord?" I finally said in my thoughts, "I don't see or feel
> anything."
>
>     "Focus more on your thoughts," I felt the Holy Spirit say.
> "How did you feel?"
>
>     "Trapped?" I suggested.  "I can't think of any time,
> specifically, in my life, when I felt trapped and unable to free
> myself," I said in my thoughts as I prayed.
>
>     There was one memory that did pop into my mind.  I had dug a
> hole with a post hole digger of my dad's and had failed to refill
> the hole when I was finished playing around.  When it snowed that
> winter, it filled the hole.  Upon walking across our backyard one
> day that winter, I fell, with one leg, into the hole I had dug and
> couldn't extricate myself for a couple of minutes.  I eventually
> did so, however, and was able to walk the remaining few feet to
> the house without incident.  I prayed in and around this memory
> and although there most certainly was fear involved in the memory,
> nothing seemed amiss.
>
>     "Lord?" I said, "I'm looking but this memory doesn't seem
> like the right place."  I continued looking.
>
>     Memories flashed by rapidly but none of them had any
> feelings, negative feelings, that popped to the surface and caught
> my attention.  I was becoming frustrated because I knew something
> had to be there but I could not find it.  I could feel it, on the
> other hand, so I continued looking as I prayed.
>
>     Finally, I said again, "Lord?  If you don't show me, I won't
> find it.  I don't recall anything ever in my life where I felt
> trapped like that turtle caught inside his shell and unable to
> free himself.  Where is it?"
>
>     "Womb," I heard clearly in my thoughts.
>
>     I was suddenly at my birth.  I have never gone that far back
> in my own memories.  Oh, sure.  I have prayed with dozens who have
> gone this far back in their prayer sessions but I never expected
> it to happen to me.  There I was, however, being born.  More
> specifically, I hadn't been born quite yet.  I was upside down,
> head down, and about ready to be born but as I looked, everything
> look like I was all tangled up in my mother's womb.  I felt the
> concern and fear I had at the time.  I saw a form of Jesus
> standing in the birthing room but I also saw a dark figure
> standing closer to where my mother was.  I knew, without asking,
> there was a demonic presence attempting to cause problems
> relating to my birth but I didn't realize, at first, what that
> might be.  "Die," and "kill," were two words that were clearly
> felt.  I explicitly recognized, for some reason, an attempt on my
> birth was being perpetrated.  I immediately prayed concerning this
> intrusion, and any lies or words or feelings or thoughts, that
> were put into or spoken in my presence by any lying spirits
> because I definitely felt I was under emotional and physical
> distress.  Once the demon was commanded to remain at attention and
> forbidden to exercise communication in any way, I asked the Lord
> what truth He wanted me to know.  I nearly laughed to myself when
> the response came.
>
>     "I born."
>
>     At first, I felt that was a strange way for Jesus to be
> talking, but when I recognized he was pleased, as he stood on the
> other side of the room watching, I realized the two words, "I
> born,  Sounded like baby talk; my baby talk.  They were, in fact,
> the words in my thoughts as I was being born.  Additionally, as I
> heard "I born" in my thoughts as I watched, I felt I heard Jesus
> saying at the very same time, "You are born."
>
>     As I meditated on what had occurred in my short time of
> prayer, I felt something was accomplished by the Lord in my behalf
> which somehow was tapped into by my wife's pet turtle when he was
> trapped within his shell.  The two words, "I born," were my words
> of accomplishment, as in, "I made it," at least that was the
> feeling I had during my prayer time.  This is often the way the
> Lord speaks to me, that is, by short statements, or mostly, by
> spiritual awareness, of which I put my own words to what I feel.
>
>     I am not suggesting you have to believe anything about what I
> have just described.  You can call it any numbers of things.  You
> can even believe I made the whole thing up so that is not the
> purpose of this testimony.  However, where you are in your
> relationship with the Lord is my concern and more importantly, it
> is His concern.  The turtle reminded me of so many with whom I
> have prayed, some still trapped, yet Jesus is available at every
> point in our lives to set us free.  The turtle, apparently, just
> needed the refreshment of the water for lubrication.  The Bible
> clearly uses water to depict the ministry and nature of the Holy
> Spirit and the current event, plus my birth, where water is also
> involved, began to make spiritual sense to me.  Are you stuck in
> your shell?  Maybe you are hiding so you can't be hurt or attacked
> and so you will always be protected.  I understand those feelings.
> So does Jesus, for that matter, but he has a way out for you.  The
> ministry of the Holy Spirit is likewise available for every
> situation you face or have experienced.  Let Him be your shell and
> set you free.
>
>
> 38  "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of
> his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
> 39  But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on
> him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because
> that Jesus was not yet glorified," (John 7:38-39).
>
> Note.  The Greek word for "belly" in this passage which Jesus used
> literally means, (the womb in which life is conceived).  He is
> referring to the human spirit that is born anew at the moment of
> salvation.  Compare the complete chapter of John 3 to this concept
> and you will understand more.
>
>
> It Sounds Like God To Me.
> www.SafePlaceFellowship.com
>
>
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