Fear

I have a confession to make. I have written on this blog about the glory of nature and how I believe that every creature is sacred. Well, I lied.

House centipedes, or gazillion-leg bugs as I call them, are of the devil. I despise them. They bring out the worst in me. I think of myself as a peaceable person. I don't often shout. I am almost never violent. But all of this changes if there is a centipede in my house. I yell, threaten, and curse the creature's offspring. I get out the bug killer and spray half of the can on the leggy thing. And then I cower in another room until my husband can remove the body.

Why do I cower? Because the real reason that I despise centipedes is because they scare me. Bugs and creepy-crawlies in general don't bother me much. If there is a spider in the house, I take it outside. I've held snakes and had pet lizards. But I'm afraid of centipedes. And that fear leads me to do things I wouldn't usually do and say things I wouldn't usually say. I am not proud of this part of myself.

This goes beyond bugs, of course. Don't we all have areas of our lives where we give in to fear? Taylor Haley spoke at my church a few weeks ago and said that fear and faith cannot exist at the same time. That idea has been resonating with me. I've been trying to seek out these areas of my life and choose faith over fear. I've also been trying to live the famous quote by Eleanor Roosevelt and do one thing every day that scares me. These things that I'm doing are small things, but they are meaningful leaps of faith, a good beginning. It feels amazing to trust God and start to let go of my fears.

I'm making progress, but it is going to take a lot of growing before I am ready to befriend a centipede.