When I was a child I used to play this game with my friends. It was so fun. We would put pillows on the floor in different spots with huge spaces in between them. The object of the game was not to touch the floor. We would jump from furniture to furniture from pillow to pillow until we reached the safe zone in the other room. It was an impossible game because the floor represented certain death. It was either grass full of snakes or an ocean filled with sharks. In my child mind it was always really stormy too. So that made the rocks (pillows) extra slippery. My friends and I would all be dramatic when we’d fall on the floor.
“Help me! I’m drowning! And the sharks got my leg too!” I’d scream.
Sometimes your friends would come hopping toward you dramatically and save you. Sometimes the weather and elements would pull them in too and we’d “die together” and still, other times they would leave you for dead and you were out or somehow managed to swim to safety.
It really was a fun game. I had for gotten about it until a friend shared his testimony at church, you know who you are, and had a pictures of sharks in the water. I sat listening about the sharks in his life and thought back to mine. The sharks that we were so terrified as children jumping away from we had become.
At some point it really was easier to become the hunter instead of the hunted. Then I thought deeper into the game we used to play. I think I understood more about life at 5 and 10 then I do now. That game we played signified how life works.
We are born perfect in a world full of stuff. Stuff that is so horrible that our minds just buckle. We try to protect ourselves and our kids. But sooner or later your children are going to run into snakes, spiders and sharks. How will they react?
Like we did in the game? “Sometimes your friends would come hopping toward you dramatically and save you. Sometimes the weather and elements would pull them in too and we’d “die together” and still, other times they would leave you for dead and you were out or somehow managed to swim to safety.”
I spent this last weekend at my parents as usual. And my bed was perfect, clean sheets, sweetly perfumed air…and as I laid in bed I saw a spider in the corner on the wall. I thought “no big deal”, but said to my mom to get dad to kill it. Well, 15 minutes later, I’m still staring at this spider. Thinking…its just a spider spinning a web. Its okay. He doesn’t even know I’m here. Besides he’s the size of a quarter and I am5’ 3”. I’m so much bigger. I’ll win this fight. Its just a spider.
Just with that thought the spider starting walking towards me. Then he started running towards my head. I started screaming for my mom while trying to jump out of bed quite unsuccessfully I might add. And then the spider just jumped on me. By the time my parents got upstairs I was already out of bed in a panic and the spider disappeared somewhere under the bed. I knew for sure he was waiting to take a bite out of me.
I slept on the couch that night. The next night I decided to brave the bed with no sign of Mr. Spidey in sight I thought he moved on. Sure enough I woke up with a huge spider bite on my hand. He got me good.
So with snakes in the grass, spiders on the ceiling and sharks in the water what are we to do?
Have faith in God, accept his grace and forgiveness. And never never never forget that His love stretches to us. These barriers we have up that we built since we were children need to be torn down and replaced with grace and love.
Grab.com
