The Intricate Web

Although I did not grow up with a love of nature, as I have fallen more in love with Father, Son and Holy Ghost I have come to love nature all the more. Many Fridays and Saturdays will find the Riddle's loaded up in our mini-van headed out on the road in any given direction. No particular place or destination in mind, just out to see what we can see of God's creation. We often times find ourselves on nature hikes in the middle of nationional forests. Soaking up the very creation that God gave man dominion over and charged him to take care of so many years ago.

I have found that God reveals himself in profound ways on these trips - his Word becomes fresh and alive in His creation.

One such time found us in the middle of the Sam Houston National Forest at one of the Parks. At the time Justin (my youngest son) was in a stroller and I was very pregnant with our youngest daughter (Rachel Elisabeth). Brent looked down the path and we determined that the path was smooth and relatively debri free (in fact it was was one of the nicer more level pathways we had seen). So we began. Brent and the two oldest blazing a path before me, as I loaded Justin and began to walk.

If you have been that far south in Texas you may be familiar with a very unique spider. It has little spikes on it and is colored brightly, if you get to see it. What is most unique about it are it's webs. They are the most intricate thing I think I have seen and I became very familar with the dangers of them that day!!

As we began down the trail I was watchful of my feet - I am not the most graceful person when it comes to walking. Being pregnant I wanted to make sure that I did not get tripped up by a root or debris in the pathway. However, something glinted in the early morning sun, a web off to the side of the path. The dew clung to the delicate strands of the web. Just a tiny beautiful web with a yellow and black spider. Small and stretched between the tiny branches of a brightly blooming bush. I walked slower so I could enjoy the beauty of that thing that sparkled in the sun, talking to Justin about it and letting him look.

Then I felt it. Sticky, icky, tangly web all over my 5 foot 3 inches!!! Literally head to toe I was ensnared. The stroller had somehow missed it, but not I. The panic flooded over me! The vision of the little horned beast of a spider I had just seen in the visitor center (where I had been warned of these very webs!) popped into my mind. I could picture it crawling down the neck of my shirt onto my bare skin. Oh - it was too much to bare. I bagan to scream, then thought "Ok now, I am a grown woman - - I WILL NOT panic! But fear had already taken root and I began to dance around as if the fire of pentecost had gotten a hold of me (for Baptist this is dangerous you know!). I think I would have stripped down and ran screaming, if God did not get a hold of me and bring me back to my sanity! Justin began to giggle and I was pulling at every strand of the terrible web - then it happened, My foot caught hold of a loose stick, not on the path - - - but just off to the side where all my panic had taken me and I fell, face first into another web.

As if things could get no worse. "Oh, Lord," I began to pray "Deliver ME!!!!! or I might just die right here!" Tears had began to well up, panic was clinching my throat --- -Brent and the big kids were way ahead and here I was fallen, covered in a web!!!

Finally cleared - - The Lord spoke -- - I think He was laughing at His daughter!
"BE vigilent!"

You see the path was not my problem...the footing on the path was not my problem (this park kept the paths clear). The problem was the thing that distracted me. I took my eyes off the path, off what was in front of me. If I had been watching was in front of me I would have seen the snare stretched out accross the pathway and would have ducked underneath it, avoiding entanglement.

The rest of the path I was more watchful. I watched for the morning sun to glint off the webs that stretched across the path and bent low to go under them. For the rest of the path I did not get entangled again. Nor did I tell Brent or the kids - - I think they would have laughed to hard at me....though now I can laugh.

When we got to the van Brent and the kids asked if I had seen the GIANT spider webs stretched accross the pathway (with a giggle). "Did you get under them okay....(giggle, giggle)?" "Yes," I said, straightening my shirt..."I made it with only one tiny problem..."

Life is just this way - that is why God has warned us to stay vigilent. Satan sets out to distract us. Our footing on God's path is not our problem, it is what gets us distracted, then entangled, finally we are to the edge of the path where the ground is not cleared and footing is not certain and we find ourselves covered and fallen.

I am grateful that I serve a God who redeems. It took some time - - and me calming down to get all the web off me and to remove the icky feeling I had. It took even more time to convince myself that little horned spider was not somewhere crawling on me, but it happened.

By the time I reached the others I was calm and restored and happy. That is what God does in our lives. He lovingly removes the webs of sin, releases us from the entaglement, sets our feet in the MIDDLE of the cleared path, kills the predator, calms the fear, gives us peace, shows us love....and takes us back.