A semi-recent phenomena in our household has been a new found love of earthworms. Just after I have finished making my coffee and we have seen G’Joe out the door and off to work, the boys are ready to go outsides to find “Mo wooms” (in Eli-speak) or “strongpows” (in Ty-speak). You see, Ty had decided early on in his toddler-hood that he would name all worms “Strongpow,” a nice Native American name from our Italian looking son, in honor of the first earthworm he found and named as such. Ty’s love for earthworms remained latent until Eli showed his own aptitude for worm-finding and torturing with his not-so-gentle love. Lately, every spare container we have is filled with dirt and some number of the poor little creatures. The boys dig them up and grab them. Then if the worms are lucky enough to survive the initial love grip of Eli, they get put into their plastic prison, only to be taken out by chubby little fingers and put through all sorts of adventures. Some such adventures include a race across our garage floor, being shoved into the pretend gas tank of their Fisher Price car, and being driven around on Ty’s super speedy scooter.

As funny as it is, they really do love these silly, slimy creatures; they are like prizes to them. In fact, we spend considerable time and energy to find the worms, digging, searching, sweating oftentimes. I say all of this because as I was finishing up my study of Exodus, I came across this quote from A.W. Pink that hit me in a very real way in light of the current earthworm obsession in our home. Pink writes, “A truly marvelous concept is that, one which our poor minds are quite incapable of rising- that the great and self-sufficient God should deem himself enriched by the worms of the earth whom He hath saved by His grace. This inheritance, like all others, has come in through death, the death of God’s own son.”

As silly as it sounds, I keep looking at the boys delight and giddy grins at having “Mo Wooms” and finding myself blown away that the God of the Universe reacts in a similar way upon finding us and grabbing us, taking us with Him wherever He is going. Now obviously the analogy breaks down in that God is not pulling us into little pieces to make “even mo wooms” or torturing us with His love. But still it was enough to bring the gospel into a new light for me.

Team Earthworm