Spider Season

There comes a time every year as the weather turns a bit colder when spiders decide it is nicer to live in a nice warm location than to live outside in the cold. I don’t know how they get in, but they like seem to like our house.

I am mostly indifferent to insects – they are a fact of life. I don’t really like mosquitos but find these days I don’t get bit that much, so they’re not so annoying. I don’t like fruit flies and we seem to get them from the potting soil I use for transplanting house plants. You can never tell before you buy it, so we just have to be diligent in eradicating them afterwards. However, spiders must go!

We have a picture of Jesus on the wall above the buffet. The hubby’s one brother bought it many years ago for his mom and it has hung in their house since that time. When mom was preparing to sell her house, she asked us if there was anything of hers we would like. The hubby said he wanted that picture. We found out later the brother would like to have taken the picture back, but said it was OK that it was still with family.

When the spiders come into our house, the most likely place we will find them is where the wall joins the ceiling above the picture of Jesus. I say they are appealing to Him to save them from the mean housewife who makes it her mission to kill them. In actuality, they are likely just attracted to the warmth of the small light at the top of the picture.

Sometimes, as I am standing on a chair with a paper towel in my hand, about to commit my dastardly deed, I apologize to the King of Life for the insect life I am about to take. After all, when He created them, death was not in the plan. But with the changes in nature since the fall into sin, death is just the way things are – the ultimate end for every living thing now.

I think I may have mentioned in past blogs about the apartment we had in Mississauga. The family who lived there for 11 years before us were Hindu and, because of their religion, didn’t kill anything, including insects. We moved in March so when the warmer weather arrived, so did the insects. There were some I had never seen before! They could have been imported from another country given the grocery items they likely bought. And we killed, and killed, and killed. Because I respond so badly to most chemicals, we used catcher devices and swatters. Wave upon wave of different insects emerged throughout the spring, summer, and fall. Winter brought some relief. The following year was better, and by the third year, there were only slightly more than you would ordinarily expect. One of those waves was fruit flies. They were thick on cupboard doors. It was quite disgusting. I could just smack the doors until my hands hurt, killing hundreds in one session. To this day, I can still catch a fruit fly out of the air – not every time, but more than half the time.

The situation in that apartment is another sign of sin in the world. I don’t know what God planned when He created insects. Some people tell me I should not kill spiders because they eat other insects. Well, did God originally create them to eat another living insect? I don’t know. However, there was balance in what God created. There would not have been an overrun of any creature in His perfect world. Now that sin is the norm, instincts have been turned to survival, and that is best accomplished with the greatest numbers.

So, until we pass from this sin-drenched earth to the perfection of heaven, I will continue to kill spiders, even those that appeal to Jesus.

Until next time, take a moment to appreciate all of God’s creation…