A spider was trapped in a large mixing bowl on our kitchen counter last week. Not wanting to wash a bowl with a spider crouched within, I ignored it. Later, I went back and noticed something, dare I say it, inspiring that the spider had accomplished.
Now this spider was totally stuck, destined for death as she could not escape, could not get to water, and had dared to wander into the home of an arachnophobe. Did she curl up into a little ball at the bottom of the huge steel mixing bowl and accept her fate?
Nope.
She made a web and she caught a fly.
And you know what?
I did not squash her. I did not demand that my husband squash her. I did not beg one of my three strong sons to squash her. I showed her to my boys with a little bit of a catch at the back of my throat and then I asked Scruffy to go and release her outside. Because I have been there, too. Stuck, without a hope in sight, breathless with my lack of options and the sudden darkness that surrounded me.
If I, a woman who hates spiders, can be moved by the humble struggles of a stray arachnid…how much more is your Father in Heaven moved by your own struggles, my friend.
He is not deaf to your cries.
He is not blind to your efforts.
He is not heartless in the face of your darkness… brokenness…defeat.
Take heart, cling to His mighty right hand, be secure in His inexplicable love.
Job 39:1, 5-7a–“Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn…Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied his ropes? I gave him the wasteland as his home, the salt flats as his habitat. He laughs at the commotion in the town; he does not hear a driver’s shout.”
Psalm 4:8–“I will lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”
Psalm 10:17-18–“You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; You encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.”
Boo Boo