Itsy Bitsy Spider

If I close my eyes, I can still picture the sweet little hands and fingers of my three children when they were toddlers ... chubby, pink, clumsy at times. I remember teaching them to tie their shoes with those hands and fingers, teaching them to count with those hands and fingers, teaching them to snap with those hands and fingers as well as a multitude of other tidbits of knowledge I imparted to my little ones as they grew. I also remember teaching each one of them to sing the song Itsy Bitsy Spider, complete with all the motions ... you know what I'm talking about, you know you do. It's odd how a quirky little song like that can become almost universal over time ... the words, the tune and the motions known to children and parents everywhere.

I suppose I never really thought about the words to the song back then, but earlier this summer I couldn't seem to get the simple lyrics out of my mind for a couple of reasons. Now for some reason unknown to me, they are stuck in my head once again ... which, of course, makes me wonder if God is trying to tell me something ... the whole need to repeat lessons to me over and over until I finally get what He wants me to learn thing, you know.

"The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout.

Down came the rain, and washed the spider out.

Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain,

and the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again."

Now the reason the song was on my mind earlier in the summer was because I had a bite on my thigh that wouldn't heal. I showed it to a couple of gals at work who immediately freaked out and said I had to call my doctor. I called my doctor, and she said I had to come into her office. I went into her office, and she said it was definitely a bug bite ... she wasn't sure what kind of bite, but it was definitely a bug bite ... duh ... I already knew it was some sort of bug bite. She wrote me prescriptions for antibiotic cream and meds, and after a couple of weeks, the bite finally healed. And then a couple of weeks later, I got another bite, and I had to go through the same process all over again. Hence the reason the itsy bitsy spider tune began to play in my head. But the more I hummed the little song, the more I started thinking about crawling up the spout, getting washed out by the rain, the sun returning to shine and tackling the spout again.

I don't have any bug bites on the outside of my body right now ... I do, however, have more than just a few bites on the inside of my heart and my mind, bites that, for whatever the reason might be, aren't healing. And perhaps that's why the spider song has returned to my mind once again ... and here's where I think God has two lessons for me that are beginning to take root in my heart and mind.

Lesson # 1: Those little bites earlier in the summer seemed small when I first noticed them, and I thought they would just heal on their own. But they didn't. The poison from the bites spread and would have eventually made me very ill had I not seen the doctor and started on the right course of medicine to help me heal. Sometimes it's the things that seem so unimportant when we first see them ... it's those things that can eventually poison our hearts and minds and render us sick and ineffective. 

Lesson # 2: Spout climbing is hard work. You climb and climb and climb, and then a torrential downpour comes, washes all your oomph away and leaves you flipped over on your back in the middle of a big fat mud puddle. But eventually, if you wait it out and hold on and believe, the sun will come back out and you can start your climb again. I think the key word there is if ... if you are strong enough and can hold on long enough and don't give up ... the sun will come out again. 

Proverbs 11:19 says, "He who is steadfast in righteousness will attain to life, and he who pursues evil will bring about his own death." Suck out all the poison, Lord, and dry up all the rain ... let Your Son shine.