Some fifteen years ago my husband Jack was given a small sealed glass globe containing two tiny shrimp swimming around a single small piece of coral. The globe was accompanied by instructions for its care and the admonition that the shrimps’ life expectancy was about two years. The larger of the two died within a year, but the smaller one, about a quarter of an inch long, still dives and swims and rests in its watery dome. It’s unchanging diet is nearly microscopic algae attached to the coral.

I marvel at the tiny creature’s endurance, and I salute it for it’s apparent joie de vivre that communicates to me through the glass

Of the many novels and short stories of the sea written by the Polish/ English author Joseph Conrad, fourteen of them include an incident of suicide. While the suicides have various motivations there is a recurring theme of loneliness resulting in a loss of meaning in life. It’s as if suicide is seen by the author as a somehow understandable response to loneliness.

From the earliest creation God has revealed Himself to be the God of life. . . . the word (of God) is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so that you may obey it. ( Deut. 30:14). Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him. For the Lord is your life. . . (Deut. 30:19).

If these scriptures are true, and God is truly our life, then it is also true that we are never actually alone. If a tiny crustacean finds sheer existence well worth living and experiences no self- destructive urges living entirely alone for fifteen years in an unchanging environment, it is because he finds life itself irresistible.

The God who is our life, however, has given us choices. Side by side with our ability to choose are examples like the shrimp, to show us God’s handiwork in another creature: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38).

Love in Him,

Prue