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.
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