THREE BLIND MICE

Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run.
They all took after the farmer’s wife,
She cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever hear such a tale in your life,
As three blind mice.

Now why would I wake up this morning with this ditty playing around in the recesses of my mind, a ditty that was common to hear quoted by Daddy or Mom in my childhood but one which I doubt I have thought of in over 30 years. As I pondered this some interesting thoughts came to my mind. I wondered why the blind mice ever got close to the farmer’s wife in the first place. Did the warmth of her farm kitchen stove lure them or was it the smell of what she might have been cooking on that stove? Or was she the one who saw them and lured them to her side with big hunks of cheese with the express purpose of doing them in. I doubt that any of these ramblings are too important in the grand scheme of things, but as my mind wandered I couldn’t help but think how like those mice we humans are.

The Bible tells us that God’s Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are His child. This says to me that we know instinctively when our thoughts, our words, our actions are not those produced by God’s Spirit within us. But how often do we rush into danger to satisfy some physical urge, to bring comfort from our own lack of self-worth. Or how often is it simply Satan luring us with the ‘cheese’ that he knows is our greatest temptation. And so we are quite like the three mice - plagued with blindness, spiritual blindness and thus we lose our ‘tails’.

But that is not the end of the story. Though there are consequences that we will never be free of, just like the little mouse will never have his tail, and though Satan has tremendous power in our world, I believe that God has a characteristic that Satan can never attain. It is only God who can take a life without a ‘tail’ and work in it to make it worthwhile and useful and blessed. Satan cannot do that!! I don’t know what the theologians call this phenomena. I call it grace!