The Story of My Niece’s Lost Turtle (aka The Miracle of Poison Ivy)

For those of you who say turtles are slow, you haven’t been around turtles lately! OK, OK, they’re pretty slow-moving if you’re measuring in seconds. But in just a few minutes last week, my niece’s beloved turtle, Ivy, went missing after just a few moments in the backyard.

Also, any chance to use a quote from The Master of Disguise, I’m going to take it! So Ivy the turtle was nowhere to be found. To backtrack a bit, just minutes before she disappeared I went for a jog. It was only a couple of miles and when I returned, the search had already begun. She had been missing for under 20 minutes at that point.

There were a few major elements working against the search.

1. Lots of big brown leaves on the ground. Ivy is brown, of course.
2. A few feet behind the backyard fence is about an acre’s worth of trees.

We looked till the sun went down then we looked with flashlights. Nothing. That little turtle was somewhere blending in perfectly with the giant, crispy leaves. I suppose that’s why her shell is brown – to hide from predators – but for once, just for once, couldn’t it glow pink?

The next morning we were searching again because we love Ivy and really, we love my niece. We need a win here. After about an hour of scouring the bushes and trees, my sister and I were going to stop, eat breakfast, reset and regroup. I returned some yard tools to the garage. My sister was on her way back to the house, too, when she glanced over, about a foot into the brush on the edge of the woods, there was Ivy.

We heard my sister’s exclamations and we came running back out!

Ivy was no longer lost.

It’s been a few days now and there are a few things I learned from this experience:

1. God wants us to come to Him for EVERYthing, even if it’s a young girl’s lost turtle.
2. Turtles are deceptively fast.
3. Wear long sleeves when you’re crawling through the woods.

That last point is in reference to the poison ivy ON BOTH OF MY ARMS. But because I need to hold on to the title of ‘best uncle,’ I’ll say this – I would welcome poison ivy all over my body if it means any of my nieces won’t be sad. How ironic, too, that I got poison ivy looking for Ivy.

Thanks for checking out my story!

-Out of the Wilderness