spiders are our friends (?)

this is a category i'm sort of prepared for. i'm always seeing something in nature that i find interesting or amusing or amazing or breathtaking or even disgusting..and, yes, even strange. God, the Creator, only does things all the way. so there's always something to discover Him in. and it seems to me that even if i've seen a thing a thousand times, it can be new - can be seen in a different light. the past month or so i've been watching a spider outside my dining room window. i'm not a big spider fan. usually when they're around me they end up smashed or flushed. my aunt linda always says "spiders are our friends"...i guess that's true, but i'm not in love with them. i've left this one alone, though. it has fascinated me. busy busy busy all the time, building and rebuilding a web connected on one side to the edge of the roof of our screened in porch and on the other end to my grandmother's rosebush. spinning and spinning over and over again. gives it a place to be. gives it a way to get what it needs to live. sometimes there's nothing stuck in the web. sometimes it hits the jackpot. this picture was taken on a jackpot day....it had whatever the green creature is (looked like a grasshopper to me) and some daddy longlegs to wrap up for later. after that it was back to work, repairing the rips in the web that its sustenance had caused. it's interesting to me that the very thing it needed is what tore down what it had been working for. hours of labor taken down by what turned out to be a blessing. spiders seem to take it all in stride - they're just doing what spiders do. if my 3 boys were reading this right now, at least one of them would be saying, "i know, i know...there's a spiritual lesson in this."....guess what? they'd be right!! so now i'm asking myself if i live my life like that. do i just do what a leigh ann does? work and labor and build on this life i'm given. some thing or some circumstance or some one flies in and tangles things up. instead of seeing it as tangles...as inconvenience...do i look at it as a blessing? or at least try to find the blessing in it? if i can't recognize the blessing, do i at least see the lesson? God has a reason for it all, good and bad. so i believe there is something to learn from everything that comes my way. everything that flies into the webs of people i love. doesn't mean i have to like it. just means i need to pay attention and learn. this is not a new lesson for me. but i seem to need reminding. maybe spiders (at least this one) really are my friends.

this is a category i'm sort of prepared for. i'm always seeing something in nature that i find interesting or amusing or amazing or breathtaking or even disgusting..and, yes, even strange. God, the Creator, only does things all the way. so there's always something to discover Him in. and it seems to me that even if i've seen a thing a thousand times, it can be new - can be seen in a different light. the past month or so i've been watching a spider outside my dining room window. i'm not a big spider fan. usually when they're around me they end up smashed or flushed. my aunt linda always says "spiders are our friends"...i guess that's true, but i'm not in love with them. i've left this one alone, though. it has fascinated me. busy busy busy all the time, building and rebuilding a web connected on one side to the edge of the roof of our screened in porch and on the other end to my grandmother's rosebush. spinning and spinning over and over again. gives it a place to be. gives it a way to get what it needs to live. sometimes there's nothing stuck in the web. sometimes it hits the jackpot. this picture was taken on a jackpot day....it had whatever the green creature is (looked like a grasshopper to me) and some daddy longlegs to wrap up for later. after that it was back to work, repairing the rips in the web that its sustenance had caused. it's interesting to me that the very thing it needed is what tore down what it had been working for. hours of labor taken down by what turned out to be a blessing. spiders seem to take it all in stride - they're just doing what spiders do. if my 3 boys were reading this right now, at least one of them would be saying, "i know, i know...there's a spiritual lesson in this."....guess what? they'd be right!! so now i'm asking myself if i live my life like that. do i just do what a leigh ann does? work and labor and build on this life i'm given. some thing or some circumstance or some one flies in and tangles things up. instead of seeing it as tangles...as inconvenience...do i look at it as a blessing? or at least try to find the blessing in it? if i can't recognize the blessing, do i at least see the lesson? God has a reason for it all, good and bad. so i believe there is something to learn from everything that comes my way. everything that flies into the webs of people i love. doesn't mean i have to like it. just means i need to pay attention and learn. this is not a new lesson for me. but i seem to need reminding. maybe spiders (at least this one) really are my friends.