caroline holzberger

The Spider in My Closet

Right now, my friend, I am haunted by two things.

One is a phrase I heard at a Christian writer’s conference. They suggested that if you have a blog, your entries should be no more than 300-500 words.

I laughed out loud.

(Crickets chirping.)

Then I realized he wasn’t teasing. Can you say, awkward?

“You should be able to be interesting in 300 words or less.”

Are you stinkin’ kidding me? That. Is. Not. Possible.

My opening sentence alone could very well  be 300 words. In fact, friend, with very little effort, I am quite certain I could blow through 300 words simply telling you all about how I simply cannot be interesting in 300 words. The only reason I am telling you this is because I truly have tried to start making my blog posts shorter. But, 300 words? Seriously!?! Ain’t gonna happen. But, you’ll still keep reading, right? Huh? Please still like me.

Whew. Deep breaths.

The other thing haunting me right now is the reason for the title of this post.

The spider in my closet.

I just got home from Worship Wednesday at my amazing church. Before that I had a women’s leadership council meeting. Before that I switched my kids’ closets from winter to spring. Before that I had Bible study with my girls. I’m tired just typing about  it. So, after a very long day, I am flat out beat. But, friend, my heart is full.

Anyway, after kissing my man and taking a picture of our daughter who had fallen asleep on his lap…

… I went to my sweet little chaotic closet. As I began to throw off my constricting clothes I hate bras and joyfully embrace my comfy pajamas, ahh, hello sports bra But, then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move.

I jumped. Like, literally jumped up into the sky!

The poor, but not at all little, spider had plenty, and I do mean plenty of places to hide on the floor of my closet. This, my friend, is the understatement of the century.

So, I knew something moved, but I didn’t know where or how I would find him.

But, I knew I had to find him, like now.

A very small part of me thought Forget about it, you’re tired. Go to bed. He won’t stay in there.

But, that’s just it. He wouldn’t stay there. And immediately I started imagining all the places he would go.

My purse.

My bath tub.

Abigail’s ear. (Yes, I’m ridiculous)

Shudder.

I couldn’t just ‘forget’ that he was in there, acting all spider-like in my closet. No way. No how. I almost woke up Ryan to help me with this daring hunt. But, he was already asleep. How the man could sleep with such a vicious beast in lovely wife’s closet, I have no idea.

So, I prepared myself with the best kid-meal toy we have ever received – a bug-catcher. This little plastic device has caught hundreds upon hundreds of bugs at our house. No, we aren’t filthy people. We live amongst hundreds of trees and my sweet hubby doesn’t believe in pesticides. God love him. Alas, we have a well-used bug-catcher instead.

I was now armed and I thought I was pretty dangerous.

I had to find this thing. I wasn’t going to let it go.

Not wanting to squat down, for fear that he would crawl into my pants leg. I stood tall because I figured this would intimidate him much more once I found him. At 5’5”, a spider is the only one intimidated by my height, that’s for darn sure. So, I chunked my shoes out and froze in anticipation. Nothing.

I kicked aside the pile of can’t-quite-fit-in-these-yet-clothes. Froze. Nothing,

Lightning fast, I grabbed the pile o’ purses in the corner and jiggled them in a scary, very intimidating type way. Froze. Nothing.

I kicked aside a basket, rolled my laundry hamper out onto the tile, growled and jiggled the plasctic stacked “organizing” drawers (ha!). Froze each time. Still nothing. Which surprised me, because if I was a spider, I would have been terrified at that growling noise!

Then I saw my boots.

My precious new rain boots. Friend, I’ve wanted fun rain boots for years. I’ve desired so badly to be ‘that girl’ who skipped along in the rain, trendy and happy, completely unaffected by the puddles surrounding her, instead of the flustered, disheveled girl with four inches of wet denim at the bottom of her jeans. I’ve never been able to justify in my head spending thirty bucks on them, though, so my wonderful parents got me a pair for my birthday. How fun are they?

(I am so praying for rain now, friend!)

So I wasn’t mad until now. Now the stinkin’ spider had crossed the line. He better not have crawled into my brand new, never-been-worn, precious rain boots.

I carefully peered down into them, shook them a bit and nothing. No movement. So far, so good. Then, in a Charlie’s Angels type karate move, I kicked them over and froze in a position I can only describe as a thirty-something mom-of-three’s version of the Karate kid crane move that won him the trophy. Ya, like that, but not.

Nothing crawled out. Whew. Good.

Then I saw it.

On the bottom of my new precious boots were the remains of a dead, crushed cockroach.

Yuck!

But then it hit me I was scared of something that didn’t exist.

All this time I wasted hunting down a fierce spider that I had convinced myself was a rare breed from East Africa that somehow made it over to Keller, Texas in an overseas shipment. One bite and you’re a goner.

I couldn’t go to bed and rest until I got this vicious spider out of my closet. But, friend, there wasn’t a spider in my closet after all. All that time wasted on a measly little cockroach. Talk about a waste of my time and energy. Look at the mess I made, all for nothing.

Friend, do you have a spider?

Something in the deepest, darkest closets of your heart, that you are scared of? Affected by? Changed by?

Is something keeping you up at night because you are scared that it is creeping around your life where you don’t want it? We all have some sort of fear.

Failure?

Losing a loved one?

Financial distress?

Never becoming a wife? A Mom? A person of worth?

Jesus is the ultimate bug catcher. He wants desperately to catch everything in your heart that keeps you quiet and feeling afraid and alone. The enemy of our souls would love nothing more than for you to stay quiet, scared and losing sleep over this thing.

I want to tell you that you don’t have a spider in your closet after all. You have an enemy named Satan. And while he is real, he is not as scary as you thought.

Scripture tells us that God didn’t give us a spirit of fear. It also tells us that Satan is the father of lies. When you are losing sleep, or wasting awake time fearing this thing, Satan wins. Trust me. I hate to admit it, but Satan has gotten quite a few tally marks in his win column on my behalf.

No more.

Join with me and realize that this big, scary, poisonous spider, is nothing more than a silly cockroach in Jesus’ eyes. To us, we see fear. To Jesus, He sees victory.

Beth Moore made a fabulous point in her ah-mazing Bible study on the book of James, that I just finished…

“Scripture by no means presents God and Satan as equal opponents. One is Creator. The other is creature. God could exhale the next breath and blow Satan to oblivion like a million shards of glass. The Father lest Satan exist and exert power and influence until Kingdom purposes are served. Satan is smart, vicious, and sly, but spiritually speaking, he also has a collar on his neck and a leash on his back, held tightly and rightly by the sovereign hand of God.”

Amen and amen!

So, let’s call it what it is – fear – lso known as an attack from the enemy. Join me, friend, because as of today, we won’t stand for it anymore. Constantly give it over to Jesus, every minute, every hour, every day. Shower Jesus with praise and thanksgiving. Keep your mind focused on the good He is bringing and not the junk the enemy brings.

We can do this, with God’s help alone.

He will clean out our hearts, and God-willing, my closet floor. 🙂

Ps. It rained today. Thank you, Jesus.

Word Count: 1,422 🙂