The Praying Mantis

As some of you know, I have quite a few flower gardens spread through my yard.  The back slope used to be bare ground but is now a perennial flower garden full of hollyhocks, sweet william, coreposis, black-eyed susans, lilies, bee balm, hot lips sage (yes, that's a plant!), butterfly weed, about 15 varieties of day lilies, Mexican hat (yes, that's a flower, too!), Canterbury bells, lupine, red hot poker (and again, yes!), lambs' ear, and several other flowers that escape my memory at the moment.  The slope is a riot of color which changes from week to week, depending on what's in bloom, and right now, the zinnias, which are not perennials but annuals, that I threw out to fill in the blank spots are in full bloom. 

Our rather large deck is surrounded by more flowerbeds which wrap around three sides of our house.  Because we sit at the end of a cul-de-sac, our front yard is very narrow, but the plot expands rapidly and incorporates .39 of an acre.  So with these multiple flower gardens, we have loads of butterflies, bees, and even praying mantises. 

Early this past spring, I found three praying mantis cocoons -- one on the side of the house, one on an azalea shrub, and another on a small cypress tree, and I was thrilled because a praying mantis can eat a lot of the bad guys that eat my flowers.  But on Sunday, I watched the demise of a hummingbird moth, and it wasn't a pretty sight.  I was standing at the step up into the garden, gazing at the beauty around me and trying to decide where I was going to put the sprinkler (watering has been a continual process due to a severe shortage of rainfall in our area) when I heard a frantic flapping sound.  I located the source of the noise and found a praying mantis that must have been least four inches long with a hummingbird moth in its vice-like grip.  Desperate to be free, the moth was flapping its wings madly, and I wondered if it actually was going to escape.  I called my husband over, and we both marveled at what we were watching. Quickly I ran inside and fetched the camera, and when I returned, the struggle was over, and the praying mantis had already chewed off the head of the hummingbird moth.  There would be no escape.  The praying mantis was the exact same color as the stems and leaves of the zinnias and blended in perfectly, and when the hummingbird moth came to sip nectar from a flower, he didn't see the death trap that was awaiting him.  That hummingbird moth did not harm my garden and was a delight to behold, but it fell prey to an insect that was designed by God to do what it does -- eat other insects.  The attached photo says it all. 

There's a lesson to be learned here.  Often we go places and don't see the dangers, disguised and attractive,  lurking there, and before we know it, we've been snared by the enemy of our souls.  Many times we don't think of the spiritual battles occuring in the heavenlies, and without diligence and protection with God's Word, we may end up like that unsuspecting hummingbird moth -- captured with no way of escape.  Stay close to God, dear friends, and don't fall prey to someone or something that blends in with the scenery around us.