FROGS

Written for Close to Home April 13, 2022

April is National Frog month. Who doesn’t love a frog? I don’t, however, like to be surprised by one at dusk. That happens often here at the house. One will hop unexpectedly between me and my front door, stopping me in my tracks, revving up the ol’ heart rate as I catch my breath and plan an exit the opposite direction without ‘it’ seeing me, until I see that ‘it’ is only a frog. I’m a bit jumpy naturally. (Family and friends who know me well might call that the proverbial understatement.)

I like frogs, though. I can even pick them up, aware of the myth of getting warts for doing so. My brother and I loved catching little ones on the pond bank behind our grandparents’ home on A Highway back when we were kids. We always let them go, but not until we had traipsed back to the house, slammed the screen door what must have been a kajillion times based on adult scoldings, and showed them off.

As a middle school teacher completing a graduate level project with colleagues, I had the task of recording the sounds of a bullfrog. This squeamish transplant to the country found a spot on the gravel bar at Float Camp, in the dark, cassette recorder in hand, and waited. I’m surprised I could hear it when it started its bellow or croak, whatever you want to call it, for the pounding of my heart in my ears. But mission accomplished. Don’t remind me now of what I did not realize then…all the other kinds of God’s creatures I could have seen or heard at that time and location.

Last week I heard an acronym using FROG: Fully Relying On God. It’s a mindset I strive for every day in every way.