Hi, for those of you who appreciated the "spider" story, tonight I have a follow up.
Let me begin by telling you about a few of the things I read today. I finished the book of Joshua. In the 3rd to the last paragraph it says "Isreal served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced everthing the LORD had done for Israel." It reminded me of the importance of experiencing God, not just hearing about things He has done.
Then I got caught up in the book of Ecclesiastes. I forgot how much I enjoy that book. It is like crawling inside Solomon's brain and reviewing his life with him while hearing his most personal thoughts and frustrations. It reminded me that happiness comes from knowing God is in control and doing what He allows you to do - no matter what the "toil".
Now that you have the background of what God had spoken to me about earlier in the day, I will share the sequel to the "Spider Story." It is entitled, "Cockroach Story."
I came home tonight after a wonderfully busy day full of blessings. I found out there is a slight possibility that Kailua United Methodist Church may give me the money to take the college course I would need to allow me to keep my job. If this happened, I would not have to find a new job, would get a $2/hour raise and a full 40 hours a week. I don't know that God will open that door, but it was nice to know that the chairperson of the Preschool board wanted me to stay enough to go to the church with the request. Being my first day back with the children (with the exception of 1 day) in almost 2 weeks, I was blessed by the warm reception and precious concern from my preschoolers. Then a quick trip home to clean up and back out to 8th grade graduation at WNA (Chelsey, one of my 5th grade girls, graduated - catching up with her original class), followed by a meeting. I finally reached home around 11:15pm. As always, I did a quick visual sweep of my apartment for spiders and such. The living area was good. (whew!) So I head toward the bathroom and turn on the light. There he is - on the ceiling of all places! My nemesis, the cockroach. Now I think this is the same cockroach that I have seen over the last few days. He seems to enjoy retreating into the overflow drain in the side of my sink. (I like to delude myself into thinking that he entered my apartment alone and only through that drain.) Now the delimma. It is now close to 11:30pm. If I have to kill that thing on the ceiling, I will wake everyone up above me. (We all know that cockroaches do not just rollover and die easily) (Also Shani and Eddie have their bedroom right above my studio). The second issue is gravity. I was convinced that if I swatted that thing with my shoe, it would fall on my arm. I don't think I would like that. So the waiting/games began. First I tried turning the light on and off. Then I pulled a folding chair (ok, my only chair) into my little bathroom and stood on it, shoe in hand. Then the bargaining begn.
"Okay God. I can do this. I can kill this critter. But can you get it off the ceiling so it won't fall on me?"
"Just kill it, Jeannie."
"Uh, yeah. As soon as it crawls off the roof and onto the wall, it is dust."
Various forms of this same interaction repeated throughout this little drama. I need to let those of you on the mainland know that this is not what you might consider to be a cockroach. It is it's buff cousin. First I decided to wait. I wasn't that tired and surely it would move eventually. My extreme gifting in the area of patience allowed me to stand and stare at it - for approximately 3 minutes. I did manage to learn that, this cockroach at least, has balance issues when trying to walk upside down on the ceiling. Next I decided I would help it along with my handy dandy Behold (yes, this would be the same dusting spray that turned spider nice and white). I stood on my chair and sprayed my dusting tool from various angles in hopes of driving my nemisis off of the ceiling and onto the wall. Didn't work. It did however move him from the angle where wall meets ceiling into open ceiling.
"Here is your shot Jeannie. Kill him now."
"No thanks God. You can do anything so get him off my ceiling. I think he is eating the Behold!"
"Do you trust me?"
"Odd timing God, but yes. That would be why I am asking you to get him off the ceiling."
"Kill him on the ceiling."
"I can't. I am not willing to let him fall on me."
This continued for a few minutes until the absolute absurdity of what I am doing sinks in. I serve the God that created everything I know and more. And I am afraid to kill a cockroach because it might fall on me. Pathetic much?? I must confess that I still did not kill the cockroach with the shoe - wait yes I did, but I am not there yet. I decided that my faith in God was bigger than my fear of the cockroach falling on me, and I got creative. I knew the broom would do nothing. (This was later proved true) So I grabbed my dustpan and attached it to the bottom of my broom. I slammed the ceiling hoping to kill it in one swipe. (Yeah, right) Instead, the critter hitchhiked a ride on the dustpan. I slammed him into the floor causing the dust pan to drop off of the broom. I kept hitting the floor thinking "must get it, must get it" I am not sure what happened, but I think the roach stuck to my broom, but it was not dead. So I shook it off and then killed it with 2 or 3 strikes of my shoe. I am always amazed at the vast variety of cockroach inerds. This one had purple, and he stunk when I killed him. Didn't expect that! Ugh.
I am sure that at least some of you are rolling your eyes thinking, "What on earth would she do with a Cobra in her apartment?" But I really think God kept that critter on the ceiling for a reason. I probably could have sat up all night and watched it lift 1 leg at a time without it really going anywhere. Why? Because I need to be experiencing the fact that I am a child of the King of the universe. In everything I do, everyday, I need to remember who my "Father" is and take courage. It may seem silly to need courage to kill a cockroach, but if I am not obedient in the silly things, how can I expect to be obedient in more important things. It may take a while (and knowing me, a bit of arguing) but eventually I will learn how to take authority like a true daughter of the King. Here's hoping you get to experience God for yourself in an unexpected way.
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