I just realized today that the two Amorite kings of Bible times and I have something in common.
I have also long been suspicious of the fact that God has one terrific sense of humor! I also think that some people are more amusing to him than others. People like me, for example, who seem to always have 2 left feet and a penchant for disaster!
Take for instance, the day the bee flew in the window…
Pensacola, Florida is a humid, sticky mess during the month of August. It also happens to be the time and place that I gave birth to my firstborn son. And as sometimes happens with babies, he failed his first PKU test and a sweet nurse from the Dr’s office called me to inform me that I needed to bring him back to be retested. With a sigh and a sense of apprehension, I slowly gathered up my sore, recently stitched back together body, and my tiny little son, and made my way to the Dr’s office with my sister for reinforcements.
The visit was “uneventful” if that’s what you want to call gingerly sitting down in a hard chair, undressing your tiny child in a freezing cold room, and then producing a wrinkled little foot so some white coated human can stab and squeeze his foot, over and over, while his cries echo around the room and you sit carefully, trying to appear calm and unfazed by the whole performance.
To reward ourselves for my “holding it together” and a job well done, my sister and I decided to treat our empty stomachs to a lunch at Hardee’s afterward. I was also hoping the food would help to glue my shattered nerves back together. I wasn’t much into moving my aching backside out of the car and onto the hard benches of the restaurant, only to turn around a few minutes later and repeat the process so we opted for the wonderful invention of the drive thru service.
I pulled the car up to the menu board with the speaker below. It seems that I can see better if I roll my window down. my sister leans over and cranks her head around, almost into my lap while we peruse our options.
Eating is not just something we do to survive. We eat because it is something we love to do. Nor do we fall into the category of folks who can make decisions on what to eat in an instant. Instead, we are the kind of girls that the afore mentioned group gets thoroughly exasperated with and hopes to heaven they aren’t behind on this day. Thankfully, for them and for us, there is no one behind us. I guess we are just that late.
A garbled voice from the speaker interrupts our scrutiny of the board and offers to take our order. We whisper furiously back and forth, trying to tie up the debate on what to order, and just as I begin to speak in my most dignified manner, the bee appears.
He didn’t just buzz around the speaker. He wasn’t even kind enough to skirt the edges of my window to scout out the territory and warn me of his arrival. No! He just flew straight in as if he owned the place, diving and spinning, make loops and circles, almost in my face one second, and off to inspect my sister the next.
Any dignity I thought I had went out the window when that bee flew in.
“A bee! There’s a bee! Get it quick!” I shrieked at a volume only my sister knew I had.
I could hear a voice over the speaker, asking if everything was ok. Its perfectly amazing how you cannot tell how much your order is going to cost you when you are straining your ear to hear that voice, and how you CAN detect concern coming from that same voice when you aren’t listening to them at all.
In a blind panic, I waved my hands furiously and kept on shrieking, “A bee! Get it out!”
My sister, who is much more composed and much less afraid of bees, rolled down her window and we eventually got the bee to go look for a home outside of the car where he could do more good and would cause less of a ruckus.
I tried to pull my scattered wits back together. As for my dignity, it was in pieces on the floorboard, with no hope of restoration. I’m not sure quite how I did it but I DID finish placing that order.
Still flustered, I pulled up to the window where a person in Hardee’s garb peered down at me. Before she could even say anything, I gasped out, “Oh, I’m so sorry but there was a bee in the car!”
She made no reaction of any kind that I can remember. She did take my money. She also handed me my food. I was glad to leave. If I could just get some of this food, that now didn’t look so appetizing, into my belly, maybe I could make it home where I could hide under the covers for the rest of forever.
I don’t know if that woman thought I was ridiculous and half demented or not but my sister sure did! We barely got onto the road before her hooting and laughing filled the car. I wasn’t amused. However, as the miles sped by under our tires, my belly filled, and my nerves relaxed. And her infectious, good-natured spirit pulled me out of my embarrassment. Soon my peals of laughter outdid hers! if I had to let someone witness that awful scene, I’m sure glad it was her.
Now the Amorite kings were enemies of God. And God used hornets, which are big fat bees in my mind, to drive them out of the land that Israel was supposed to come in and occupy as their own promised land. I can just imagine those two men, in rich, kingly robes, maybe riding in ornate chariots, in a blind panic such as mine, whipping their horses and waving their arms, racing to get away from those awful buzzing bees! And all their soldiers, running along behind on foot. Now that would really give my sister something to laugh at, but I can’t help feeling at least a little bit sorry for them.
So the kings and I have something in common. We both had/have a tremendous fear of bees. I want to say respect, but for me it is just plain fear! I know, however, that I am not an enemy of God like they were. I hope instead that I have just proved my point. That God has one tremendous sense of humor, and he enjoys using it on his children for good not evil.
Because I asked my sister today if she remembers that day and her answer? “I think I will remember that day until I am 90, or until I die, or until I have Alzheimer’s, whichever one comes first!”