More sea creature fun with Sally Streib, the main character in “The Girl God Rescued.”

See bonus photos from the previous installment of The Girl God Rescued here.
See bonus photos from the next installment of The Girl God Rescued here.

I
still remember how it felt to leave Juvenile Hall and pile into Dad’s limo and
head home. I didn’t even know where home was, but I still wanted to go! My
family would be altogether again.

After
my parents got us out of Juvenile Hall, we left the beach environment and
headed for the mountains. What a change! I moved from living at sea level to
almost 8,000 feet above it. The plants and animals looked very unique. Their
homes looked different and so did mine.

God
loves to make sure that every creature, including you, has a home that suits
your needs. Look at the pictures of human homes I selected. Someone calls each
one of them home.

I’m
fascinated by crabs and their homes. Hermit crabs can’t make their own home and
must search for one that some mollusk built and vacated. I love to capture a
hermit crab that is hiding in a shell. I put it in a pool of seawater and place
several shells nearby. When the hermit crab decides that danger is past, it
pokes out of its shell and looks around. “Look at that!” I thought I heard one
say when it spotted the beautiful shells I placed nearby. The crab dashed over
and picked up each new shell. It turned it over and over with tiny claws,
dropped it and picked up another one. Suddenly it dropped its own shell and
jammed the worm-like portion of its body into the new shell. Looking very
satisfied, the hermit and its new home headed out to sea.

Hermit crab

Some
creatures need sand for homes. Mollusk creatures create their own homes and
carry them about when they ooze over the sand. The pictures include olives,
tulips, helmets, and tellin shells. These creatures live on sand but can cover
themselves in the sand and pop out of it at low tide. Selecting an early
morning or evening with a low tide is best if you want to find shells.

Sunrise tellin

Helmet shells

An
octopus can find a home in any crevice, but often has a “home base.” Because it
has no bones, it can stuff itself into a small place.

Sea urchins often hide under rocks or in rocky crevices. Sand dollars, a member of
the same Echinoderm family, cruise about on the sand. They like lots of friends
and I’ve seen them tipped on their edges, hiding among hundreds of others.

Sand dollar

You
may have heard your mom say, “be it ever so humble, there’s no place like
home.” She’s right! And, the one I’m looking forward to most is my heavenly
home. I suspect it will be on some sparkling body of sea water and have a mountain
in the back yard. I’ll like that, but the real reason it will be wonderful is
that Jesus will be there and I will talk with Him whenever I want. I have a lot of questions to ask Him about
the creatures He made and how He chose home for them.