October 2003

Bees and Boys

            Our grandson Elijah’s scream alerted us to the fact that something was wrong.  He had been stung, and he was letting us know about it.  He was in the swing we have hung in the tree in the backyard.  We didn’t think too much about it, since being outdoors includes the presence of bees.  But a week or so later he was back in the swing and got stung again.  The next week I was canoeing with some friends when I got a frantic call on my cell phone: “Where did you put the ‘Sting Ease’?  Unfortunately I had brought it with me on the trip.  He had been stung for the third time — this time on the eyelid.  Each time he had been on the swing. 

            When I got home I searched the ground for the yellow jacket nest.  I carried a gas can to pour down the hole (No, I wasn’t going to light it).  I looked all around the tree and never did find anything.  Later, Jeremy went out into the yard and came back in saying he had found the nest — it was in the tree!  It was a hornet’s nest built on the very limb the swing was on.  So every time we pushed Elijah on the swing, it stirred up a hornet’s nest.  In all that time we had not seen it.  I had mowed under the tree several times and never seen it or been bothered by the hornets, but there it was, hidden by the leaves.  Out came the wasp and hornet spray, and down came the nest. 

            All that time I had been looking in the wrong direction.  I was looking at the ground when they were in the tree.  I often don’t see trouble coming because I am looking in the wrong direction.  I’m looking down when I should be looking up.  I’m looking this way when I should have been looking that way.  Trouble sometimes blindsides me.  I’m not expecting it, at least in the way it comes.  It is never predictable.  But one thing is predictable: the faithfulness of God.  When life stings, he is there.  In fact, he has been stung before himself. 

            This is why prayer is so important.  If I am not praying I am not prepared for the surprise attacks that life sometimes brings.  If I have neglected the Bible I am not able to understand what happens to me.  If I am not in fellowship with other Christians I have no support during those times.  Those times will come — it is a part of living in this world.  But because I have spent time in prayer, because I have been reading the Word, because I have a support group of other Christians who care for me and have experienced some of these things themselves, I am able to stand when otherwise I might have fallen. 

            You might be swinging now, but there may be a hornet’s nest on the very branch you’re swinging on.  Be ready for it. 

Spray can in hand,

Rod