Healing of Feeling “Squeamish” of Crawling Creatures

I had an experience this morning that I was so grateful for and would like to share. I woke up to what looked sort of like a mouse sign on my kitchen counter, which was quite distressing to me. I run a pretty tight ship around here, and mice don’t belong in the house. Further, I have always been somewhat squeamish of crawling things in many categories.

As I was spraying down the counter, though, I recognized that I should not give in to these feelings of fear and dismay over the situation that were beginning to overcome me. I was contemplating this while opening the window shades for the day when I nearly jumped out of my skin seeing that there was a bat hanging upside down on the window trim. In 40 some years of living in northern New Hampshire it’s not entirely uncommon to have bats show up once in a while where they don’t belong but what was unusual for me was my response. I knew that it was right here and now that I had to demonstrate my dominion over fear, and it had nothing to do with a little furry creature (quite a large one, I might add) hanging on my window.

I began to think very clearly, and the first thought that came was that all of God‘s creatures are useful and harmless. (I’m pretty sure this is a quote from Mary Baker Eddy)I figured that if this is true, then the reverse—that there is a creature that is bad and harmful—could not be true. So, what happened was that without even thinking about it, my response and main concern in the situation became to move the bat without hurting him. Normally, I would have called in someone else to get the bat, and at the very least, my last concern would have been one of his well-being. This feeling that came over me of wanting to preserve the bat’s well-being was very unexpected and somehow very comforting to me, and it was then that I realized that it was because I was reflecting God‘s Love. I calmly put a towel on the bottom of a bucket, got a ladder and some gloves, and gently pushed him into the bucket and carried it very calmly outdoors. This may not seem like a big thing to many people, but for me, it was revolutionary. The best part of it was how my thought was totally transformed from one of protecting myself from the bat to protecting the bat itself. God‘s creature. That was certainly nothing I could have ever dreamed of and brings me to my knees to realize the wonder and amazing glory of how God works.

In Genesis, God gives man dominion over all the Earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the Earth. I’m so grateful for this Truth and the practical way in which I saw it realized this morning.