A Divine Beaver?

I've been in a bit of a funk lately.  (Author's note: A lot of this blogpost has been redacted since it was first published, as I came to realize it was too personal to post online.)

 I don't know if you recall a short story I posted on this blog some time ago.  There are two major diversions in my life: writing and hiking.  The first, writing, channels my emotions into characters and plots.  The second, hiking, renews me entirely.  When I am out in the woods, responsibilities, cares, and anxiety fades. I hike and birdwatch, at least lately because it relieves my stress temporarily.

I recently  took a hike to Lick Creek to ponder my thoughts and pray in solitude. And, perhaps, watch whatever nature was there.  These Blue-Winged Teals  (Anas discors) foraged on an oxbow lake as I watched.  Tense and anxious  themselves, once the teals saw me they took flight and left.  Teals are some of the most skittish ducks I have ever seen.

 Walking by the river (it may be called Lick Creek, but it is a river),  I continued to harbor depression.

 Stopping by a small swale near the edge of the river,  something snapped inside.  "It's a lovely spring day, and I am young, well-off, and healthy.  What am I complaining for?  Why do I have these thoughts?"

Some compulsion told me, as I walked back to the trailhead, to walk back to the bridge one last time.  My legs were tired and I didn't necessarily want to, but I did it anyway, feeling as though I should for some reason.  Once on the bridge,  I noted these Blue-Winged Teals feeding in a nearby tributary stream.  I moved parallel to the creek along the road to get more pictures.

 As I was wondering why I visited the bridge,  I spotted something in the tributary creek, something I had never seen before in my life, something, but for that small compulsion earlier,  I would never have seen.  It was... a Beaver.  Yes, I know, overly dramatic.  Still,  I'd never seen one before.  The size of the animal immediately precluded Muskrat, and I'd seen the lodge before.  I watched this animal cruise upriver until it disappeared, my lingering anxiety entirely replaced by the joy of discovering something I've never seen before.

 While I understand that some people may see this entire incident as a coincidence,  I find that this sort of "coincidence" happens quite frequently, and I attribute God to it.  I do not know whether this was a particularly divine beaver, but I believe it might have been.  This reminds me of one of my favorite Bible verses, 1 Corinthians 1:25

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

I suppose a beaver being sent from God is rather foolish, too. Still, I would rather believe in such a thing than in an absolute and empty nothingness.  Anyway, that's enough personal philosophy for now.  I do have an announcement, however.  I will be decreasing the number of blogposts from now on to twice a week.  Twice a week is probably more than enough, and I've been outdoing that lately.

Also, I got a better picture of those teals after the beaver disappeared!