My husband and I had an adventure yesterday. We transferred four beautiful koi from our friend’s pond to our own. Re-homing fish is not easy. In fact, it’s a little like what Jesus did.
Former Co-Pastor Sylvia Peterson
Ken’s pond is beautiful and his fish must be happy there. They are healthy enough to breed without encouragement. Usually koi need ideal environmental factors that Ken’s pond doesn’t have. The fish couldn’t care less, which is why this is the third year he has asked us to move some to our house. He has too many fish and we have room for more.
If you’ve never re-homed fish, let me teach you what we’ve learned. It’s stressful.
Someone has to get into the pond and catch the fish since they don’t want to be caught. The game of hide-and-go-seek must be played gently without stirring up from the mucky bottom and without stressing the fish. If they get too upset and/or bumped around they bleed through the gills.
This can be life threatening.
Before we even arrive, Ken pumps out half the water so there are fewer places for the fish to hide. They are extremely smart and seem to have figured out that when there’s less water, speed is their best strategy.
Since it’s Ken’s pond, he puts on the hip waders that leak, and gets into the water. (Note for next year – patch the hip waders.) He carefully lifts out the plants, turns off the waterfall, and identifies for us which fish need to be moved. This year it was two 6-inchers and two foot-longs.
Healthy, stealthy, and fast. Stunning fish!
Ken carefully netted them one at a time while my husband and I filled large plastic bags with oxygen tablets and water. Once the fish were bagged we used a portable air compressor to fill the bags with more oxygen and tied off the tops. Each bag then went into a second one also filled with oxygen so the fish would be cushioned for the ride home.
This morning, my husband and I congratulated ourselves on the great job we did moving the koi. They weren’t unnecessarily stressed. He didn’t fall in the pond this year. None of the sacks broke on the way home. The fish schooled with ours within minutes of being released.
Then we had an interesting conversation about the humanity of Christ.
Most of us weren’t born into a bad pond. We weren’t particularly traumatized, tormented, or unappreciated. For the most part, we got along with the other “fish in the pond.” We didn’t know there was another body of water somewhere else that would better meet our forever needs.
Then Jesus showed up.
John 1:16-18 says, “We all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift. We got the basics from Moses, and then this exuberant giving and receiving, this endless knowing and understanding—all this came through Jesus, the Messiah. No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day.”
Being told about God is much different than being shown the heart of God. Jesus came to reveal a Father who creates and sustains because He loves us deeply. As proof of that love, He wants to move each of us to a new place—not a better earthly pond, but a forever eternal home beyond our imaginations.
As of this morning the fish looked good. We are so grateful for Ken’s generosity and his trust that we’ll give his beautiful koi a healthy “forever home” in our backyard.
•••
Sylvia Peterson is a former co-pastor for Bald Hill Community Church and an author. She and her husband are chaplains for the Bald Hills Fire Department. You can email her at sylviap7@comcast.net. She is the author of a new book, “The Red Door: Where Hurt and Holiness Collide,” which can be purchased at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
October 09, 2020 at 03:00AM
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