Forbidden Fruit

      My daughter’s family and granddaughters gifted me with two beautiful white, fluffy albino Angora rabbits. I had expressed an interest in raising Angora rabbits, and
utilizing their fur as wool. My granddaughters had fallen in love with these 2 five-month old bunnies and named them Snowflake and Coconut. So began an adventure in learning to care for these rabbits. As pets, they reside in a “den” (their cage) in our office, and daily can run, jump and binky around several “safe” areas in the house. (In rabbit terminology, “binky” refers to behavior by rabbits to run, and jump, while wiggling their leg, which they do, when they are happy.)
      The information on the internet warned that rabbits are inclined to chew on wires and eat houseplants, many of which might be toxic for them. Snowflake and Coconut quickly learned to avoid areas, that were off-limits to them, and being sensitive bunnies,
they were mostly obedient to these prohibitions. We had to research which houseplants were safe for them and which were not. They quickly found the parsley and nibbled it happily. I tried to interest them in catnip, which is supposed to be healthy for bunnies, without the same effect that it has on cats. Bougainvillea leaves also were safe for them and they relished it, as they did timothy hay and romaine lettuce.
      However, one house plant, the bird-of-paradise leaves, continuously attracted them and yet, were said to be toxic to rabbits. So, they would ignore the safe plants and
continued to try and chew on bird-of-paradise leaves.
      How this reminds of the original problem that Adam and Eve were confronted with, concerning not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Though the Lord gave Adam and Eve permission to eat of every other fruit, they could not resist the forbidden fruit of that tree.
      Snowflake and Coconut thankfully have not been able to ingest a harmful amount of Bird-of-Paradise leaves, through being restrained. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve and
all their future offspring suffered the results of eating the fruit of Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Thankfully, the Lord eventually did provide us an antidote, in trusting in Jesus the Messiah.