A Bug's Life

I was recently sharing my “life story” with a few new friends, and the final comment, from one of them, was “Wow, you’ve really been through the ringer”. Huh! No one had ever said that to me. Was it true? Yes, probably, but for some reason there was a new “victim pride” feeling that welled up in me. I had the internal thought, “Yeah! I have been through the ringer! I’m pretty sure I’m owed about ten years of ‘feast’”, if you will. Well, the Holy Spirit was quick to grab that word “owed” and bring it to my attention. I kind of got a little sick to my stomach over the thought that I might have been owed some blessing due to the difficult circumstances I’d been through. I’ve known that this is not how God operates.

This pity party mentality is not new to me. In high school, I had my bedroom downstairs in the basement of a Georgia home. The deep south and I didn’t see eye to eye. I’d moved there with my family, when I was 16, and was none too happy. Well, my basement room had a foundation problem that was allowing these maggot-looking bugs to come up through the foundation, through the carpet, and into my room. You, literally, had to put shoes on to walk through my room! Of course, my parents said, “Yuck! Move upstairs to share a room with your brother”. And, I laid on my bed, looking down at the bugs, and said, “No. I’m fine.” I laugh at that now because I so clearly just pitied my own circumstances, and it was more satisfying to wallow in them, than to actually focus on moving forward. I thought I was owed something more and just moving upstairs wasn’t going to fix THAT!

I’m owed nothing. You’re owed nothing. God is ridiculously good, giving, and loving. He met me on my bed, and we talked a lot. I cried a lot. That bug-room was, I think, the first place where I heard His voice. I’d been a Christian for quite a while at that point, but wallowing in my pity was where He met me….down with the bugs. Sometimes we just have to stay alone and quiet to hear Him. When I hear myself talking about being owed, He is quick to remind me about the bugs, and how He eventually pulled me out of there, and gave me so much more than living upstairs!