Those of you who know me know that I love spiders... NOT. Over the years living in Arkansas I have slowly gotten better at dealing with them. Let me just say there was a time when a friend received a phone call at midnight to come kill a spider that was smaller then a dime! To my credit the spider had red on it so it could have been dangerous!
When deciding to come to India I remember sitting down and talking with Mel, the founder of JOYN, about what to expect. She started with saying that her partner Rikki thought it would be good to ask a list of questions like how do you deal with spiders, etc... She listed more things but I stopped listening after spiders and quickly stopped Mel from going any further. I asked her in a timid voice, “you have spiders?”. She proceeded to tell me a story of using the restroom late at night and went to lean back when she realized there was a giant spider on the back of the toilet. I cried a little inside as she told this story and then asked her if it is culturally inappropriate to scream like a little girl? She assured me that it wasn’t and that put me at ease a little. Never the less I wasn’t going to let my fear get the best of me, “I can do this”, I thought to myself.
As I packed my bags and started my move east I knew what was ahead, a new journey, a great job and giant arachnids! Daily I was on the look out especially when entering my bathroom. It had been almost three months and I hadn’t seem any big spiders and thought to myself “God is good”. I even bragged to a friend that I have had a lot of grace with all of the bugs in our house, termites, ants and the occasional small spider. Go figure a couple of days later I had my first terrifying encounter.
Picture this; I was skyping with my dad having a good time when I looked up from the computer and saw the eight legged freak. She was the biggest spider I had ever seen outside of a glass box at a zoo and she was close to touching my pillow. My eyes started to fill with tears and my breath started to quicken as I told my dad I had to go and figure out how to deal with charlotte. I started to pace back and forth praying for grace and to not fear. I knew this moment was coming but I thought it would take place outside or in a common room of the house. Ease me into dealing with this things! I tried to pump myself up and come up with a plane of attack. I couldn’t smash her as she was told large and would most likely spray spider guts all over my room and that is just nasty! I couldn’t put her in a bowl as I would have to get close to her and how do you get a spider into a bowl from a wall? There was no hope I was going to have to move out of my room and take up residence in a bubble somewhere. Thankfully my roommates returned home and to my rescue. They quickly threw a towel over her and put her outside. They made it look so easy, like Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk. Needless to say I did not sleep well that night or a couple nights there after.
To help myself deal with this traumatic experience I rearranged my room and came up with several steps to follow before going to sleep. The first thing I do when returning home from work or an outing is open my door and survey the war zone. Once the cost is clear I quickly step into my room and look behind me just in case there is something above my door. I then check the bathroom, behind my pillows, my sheets and under my bed to make sure all is well! I also keep reminding myself that God did not give us a spirit of fear and I fully believe that one day that will be a reality when it comes to giant arachnids.
2 Timothy 1:7 " For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control."
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