I've written a lot about the trail that I walk on, the trail where I've logged so many miles over the last three or so years. I love that trail, and considering that when I began walking with J.R. I could hardly walk a quarter of a mile without being out of breath, me saying I love my trail is kind of a big deal. Over the years as I've walked along my trail, I've seen baby hawks in a nest in a tree; a fox sitting on second base on the baseball field; a beaver, fish, turtles and ducks swimming in the creek; a bobcat chasing its prey across the trail; young deer cavorting and playing in a field and countless rabbits and squirrels scurrying through the grass. I've heard the hoot of an owl, the barks of dogs, the booming clap of thunder, the laughter of little kids and wind whistling through the trees. Yep, I've seen and heard a whole lot of things as I've walked along my trail. But only one time ... thankfully only one time have I seen a snake ... a big, gray, slithering snake. And I've got shivers running up my spine just thinking about it even now.
It was a beautiful fall evening last October, the perfect night for a pre-dusk walk with Oliver the wiener dog. When Ollie and I go walking, we walk down my street, cross the main road, walk on the sidewalk for a short distance and then cut across the grass to get on the trail where it connects with a wooden bridge. I had noticed back in the summer that there was a large hole in the ground beneath the paved trail where Ollie and I would step on to begin our walk, and I remember wondering if an animal of some sort lived in that hole. I always look down at my feet when I walk, a habit I began when I was having some significant issues with my balance. I let Ollie run ahead of me and barely glanced up as he jumped on the trail and waited for me to join him. I was one step away from joining him when I saw what I thought was a large stick protruding from the hole ... and then it moved ... and then the flipping stick moved, and I realized it was a big, gray, slithering snake. I'm not sure I've ever moved as fast as I did that evening ... I jumped onto the trail, scooped Oliver into my arms and ran across the bridge looking back over my shoulder to make sure the snake wasn't chasing us. And yes, I'm more than certain that a snake could chase a woman and her wiener dog if it wanted to ... yes, it certainly could.
Several months ago, a friend offered to let me borrow a skirt to wear to my great great nephew's dedication service back in Tennessee ... she even said I could wear it with my Converse tennies. After I told her that I didn't want to wear a skirt, I made a statement that has given me pause to think about the impact of the words I uttered that day time and time again. "I don't want to wear a skirt ... you can put a snake in a sheepskin and it's still a snake ... I don't want to wear a skirt." Ever since that day, I've thought about how many times in life we try to take the snakes in our lives and put them in sheepskins ... the snakes of hate, pride, jealousy, greed, adultery, lying, cheating, gossip ... so many snakes that we try to cover in sheepskins in an attempt to make them appear to be soft, cuddly, loveable sheep rather than scaly, cold, slithering snakes.
Here's the thing, though ... the lesson I think I'm supposed to glean from both my words that day and my pondering about them ever since. I get why people sometimes try to put sheepskins over the snakes of life ... I get trying to cover up sins, yep, I get that. I get that our tendency as humans is to point out the snakes underneath the sheepskins of others, yep, I get that. But you know what the big lesson is for me? Sometimes there are sheep beneath the snakeskins, friends ... sometimes there are really good people with really good hearts covered by the snakeskins of illness, hurt, pain, depression, grief or stress. Only God knows the hearts of people, friends ... only God knows my heart and yours. It's not up to me to know who's a sheep or who's a snake on the inside ... it's up to Him. And I'm glad ... so very, very glad ... it is.
"For God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 1Samuel 16:7
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