Nothing like an ant dropping into your coffee cup and taking a swim...
Even toddlers know this tune. Doesn't it sound so happy and friendly when they march it out with their little voices all rejoicing "the little one stopped to pick up sticks, HURRAH HURRAH!"?
Nothing to indicate the annoyances of ants as we enter into rainy ant season and their obsessive determination that what is mine is theirs. And my equal determination to let them know it absolutely is NOT!
Why don't they look at me like a Goliath sized creature and cower in fear? Why do they show more fearlessness than the Children of Israel did when they faced their Goliath or the giants in the promised land they were supposed to take? Or more fearlessness than me when I am wanting to share introduce Jesus to someone who seems to have their life together but still needs a Savior when all is said and done.
Of course having ants invade reminded me of the scripture " Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways and be wise!" book of proverbs 6:6. They have some good characteristics evidently. Things like strategic position in rank and being industrious and carrying far more than their weight in food to supply the home team.
Even so, there are definitely more of the ants than there are of me of various sorts no less and they are inside my house! Running all over the boundaries that keep most of nature out and those of us who are not appreciative of all aspects of nature such as bugs, poison ivy, weather too wet or hot or cold, provided with a haven to get out of those things.
I am trying to avoid using poisonous sprays on them in the home at this current time but am seriously about to let that go. I have laid ant traps in hidden places where ants go and hopefully toddlers don't (we know how that can go!) They are guaranteed to have ants carry its left overs home to the nest and destroy it's inhabitants. Well that is a great strategy anyway. I need to remember that when engaging in the skirmishes the spiritual enemy sends my way. Don't just hit what is at the surface. Go to the root of things and deal with it there. Amen!
Have a blessed day! Oh and if you have any thing that has worked for you on ant riddance will you let me know?...Thanks!
Researching for the Mother's Day message, I came up with something I didn't know before. At least not officially. I did see it in operation over my lifetime. Especially in my own years as a mom. I wanted to see where "Mother" was first used in the Bible. I found that right away in the early chapters of Genesis. (2:24 and 3:20 if you want that for your own information)
What I found too was in the original meaning of the word for Mother was also the concept of "the bond of the family". Wow! Did you know that? Maybe. I did not. Only instinctively not intellectually as in having backing from books and such. I guess it was more of an unresearched theory. Really sometimes as a Mom you just get busy doing mom life and don't think a whole lot about what is behind it.
This could be a reason it can be so hard to let go as they are growing up and while we may be happy for the success of other children, we are SO proud of our own children. It could also be a reason we feel so stretched being busy doing what bonds the family. In fact one of the hormones produced in women during labor in childbirth and while nursing her babies is Oxytocin which has the purpose of bonding her to her child. Just to mention men have this hormone as well, but it operates in a particular way in women with their babies. I believe that is God designed.
What we learn as moms, is how needy babies are. They really can not do what they need to keep themselves alive. They do have a built in alarm system letting them cry for attention pretty well! Still they need someone fiercely attached who will endure sleepless nights, poopy diapers, feedings, spit up, maybe some colic in the mix, playing and hugging all while doing the other things it takes to run a home. In general they need someone who will lay down their own life, and come through on the other side of that weary perhaps (oh yes!) but loving them everlastingly just the same. Being cute little packages of squishy cuddliness goes a long way too.
I have several friends who have adopted and I wondered how this attachment process worked in that situation. After all I have seen for myself how tight the bond is with these mothers and adopted children. The final study I found drew the conclusion that in current studies "the adoptive mother's sensitivity seems comparable the the sensitivity of nonadoptive mothers, a finding that concurs with the attachment results. It is suggested that the outcomes in this study may be partly explained by the fact that these infants were placed for adoption at a rather young age with relatively favorable circumstances prior to the placement." Utrecht University
What of women who seem to have had difficulty bonding? Studies done showed some of the following "We decided to look at the interpersonal characteristics of individual women to see if there was a correlation with changes in their oxytocin levels," said Turner, who is also the Direvtor of Student Research at the California School of Professional Psychology, Almeda campus. "We found a significant difference between women who reported distress and anxiety in their relationships and women who were more secure in thier relationships."
Developmental Psycology Sept 2005
I do not know how many women were part of the study. I know many women who have undergone difficult relationships and still have great attachment to their children yet I do think the study shows something worth noting even though I do not have studies ready at this moment to back me. Oxytocin also bonds a man and a woman when they come together in the "one flesh" way as the Bible puts it. In a society that has encouraged in so many ways "sexual liberation" thus possibly bonding to different partners, does the ability to form secure relationships with each other become affected? Does it then create some torn things in us making it difficult to trust one another and feel secure in relationships with a trickle down effect to our children? (In some cases a deluge effect to our children).
God is about abundant life and how it is best lived. He is about how we can have more secure male/female relationships,secure children and societies. He is not about hindering good things in our lives when He gives instructions about purity in our lives. John 10:10 says "The thief (satan) comes not except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I (Jesus) am come that they (you) may have life, and that they (you) may have it more abundantly" Fortunately He is also about the restoring of broken lives to bring us into abundant life. Life that holds hope for us and our children.
How many of you have kept Baby Books marking your baby's firsts? If you don't have children, you may have had one kept about you. Did you ever think about the books God keeps about His kids? Think about it. The Bible itself is a book of records and history along with the things God wants us to know will be happening on ahead yet. It is a book of books.
Psalm 139:16 says...
"Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them"
I wrote things like the first steps, foods, words and funny things. I also wrote what their names meant and what I believed for their character. You know maybe all of the stuff saved itself isn't that big of a deal (some is!!!). You can only save so many papers from school and so on. But I think knowing they belonged and were loved is what it shows. They are MY kids and have infinite value to me. I have to admit as time went on I wasn't as good at keeping the books for each of my babies. Remember I have had 8 lovely, perfect, precious to me ones. It was only due to limited time though that I fell behind. I was so busy in the mix of everyday life I couldn't get to keeping the books up. Hopefully that is seen as "I was so busy loving them in all the day to day ways kids need loving".
God wrote about me and you and the days fashioned or designed for each of us. Wow, and there are so many of us! I bet, if I were a betting woman, that He never mixes up our names either. No confusion with God. What an amazing mind! Me? Well I can look straight at the child I am talking to and just plain call them the wrong name and keep calling the wrong name like I am making roll call on through a couple more names in the family until I land on the one name I should have called in the first place. Any way on with books and remembering...
He says in the book of Jeremiah 30:2b ... "Write in a book for yourself all the words that I have spoken to you."
Then there is Malachi 3:16:
"Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another,
And the Lord listened and heard them;
So a book of remembrance was written before Him
For those who fear the Lord
And who meditate on His name"
I didn't keep detailed accounts of my kids misdeeds either. Love covers a multitude of sins remember?The purpose of my keeping baby books was to remember and mark baby growth events.
However not everything written about everyone in the Bible was the stellar deeds they all did. Did you ever notice that? How real God is. And how real the lives He tells us about were. I have to admit I am glad my deeds are not the ones written there for everyone through the ages to learn from. You know the way it says in the Timothy's book in the Bible about all scripture being God breathed and profitable for instruction and reproof and cutting garbage out of our lives (my very loose paraphrase).
Another book mentioned is in Revelation 21:27
"But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life."
Why is it the Lamb's Book? Because Jesus was the Lamb Who was slain for your sins and mine and raised on the 3rd day because death could not hold Him! Everyone who believes this in their hearts and confesses Him will be saved and their names written in the Lamb's Book of Life. It is a record of all those bought and paid for by the Lamb of God. How reassuring to know my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And you can be sure too if you're not already!
