I love spring! I still consider fall my favorite season, but there is something about spring that I just love. I guess after being cooped up all winter, having to bundle up each day, dealing with elementary recess in a small, enclosed, NOISY environment, I am just sooooooo ready for spring! There is such a refreshing smell in the breezy air. I wish I could just stay outside all day! Plants, tree blossoms, and flowers start to grow and make the world such a pretty place to live. However, its not even technically spring yet, and I am already seeing something negative about this upcoming season....bugs!
School was over. I had done a bit of decorating in the classroom, and was reluctantly closing the window as I was about to head out the door. Before I had closed the window, I had placed one of my teacher tote bags on my desk. When I picked the bag up, I noticed 3 little ants scurrying around on my desk. I quickly grabbed a tissue and put the little creatures out of their misery. I found it quite strange that there were ants on my desk, but I wasn't going to spend much time thinking about it...until I noticed a few ants crawling around on the outside of my teacher bag. Then all the memories came flashing back....
Last year, I had an ant problem in my classroom. Every day there would be ants crawling around in my lunch bag (Gross!). It took me a few days to realize that putting stuff on the floor next to my desk was not such a good idea! Funny thing was, during this time, I had an ant farm in the classroom. I was trying everything to get these big, ugly black ants to dig tunnels in their ant farm. I mean, that was the whole purpose of me buying them, so the kids could see the ant tunnels! However, they were not cooperating. So not only was I dealing with big, stubborn, black ants in my ant farm, but I was also dealing with little tiny brown ants all over the floor and file cabinet. Thankfully, after a few sprays with ant killer, the problem was over. (The ants in the ant farm eventually did make some pitiful looking tunnels...had they not I would have been tempted to spray them as well!)
So all this came flashing back today when I realized I indeed had the ant problem again. Funny thing was, I had just gotten done telling my friend last night that I didn't seem to have the ant problem this year. Grrrrr...they must have heard me, the little buggers!
I got down on the floor to see how many ants were crawling about. There was a whole host of them...ick! So I got my handy, dandy ant spray killer, and showed no mercy as I sprayed all around the area. Needless to say, the fresh aroma of spring was no longer in the classroom. :(
Today, I had a bunch of stuff to bring in to school, so I actually brought in 2 teacher tote bags. Of all days to do such a thing! I tried killing as many ants as I could find that were crawling around the bags, but I knew there had to be ants INSIDE the bags yet, and I really didn't want to deal with them at the moment. So I held the bags at an arm's length and took them out to the van. All the way home, I was literally smooshing ants the entire time.
When we got home, I took the bags out to the porch and dumped out the contents. Let's just say, I needed to do some spring cleaning in the one bag anyway! There were a bunch of ants having a picnic with some leftover snack crumbs at the bottom of the bag. I was literally feeling grossed out by this point, and was itchy all over. I really didn't want to use up a whole box of tissues on these creatures who just kept appearing out of no where. So, I decided to get out our little vacuum cleaner with a handy-dandy long hose, and suck those babies up! That seemed to do the trick, though I did see a few others after I had supposedly sucked them all up. Yikes, those little ants were determined little creatures!!! They just refused to die....arrrggg! Usually, I try to put myself in these little creatures' "shoes" and think about how frightened they must be to see this huge tissue or long hose coming down upon them with no thoughts of escape. Also, clips from the movie "A Bug's Life" start to haunt me as well. But today, I was not "feeling the love" at all.
However, it did remind me of the verse in Proverbs 6:6 ~ Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
If we were as determined and as perseverant as these little creatures, I wonder how much more we could accomplish in our lives?!
I must admit that although thoughts of pity for the ants didn't really cross my mind during this process, the overwhelming thought of - This is how tiny and insignificant we are compared to God - stuck with me. God could just "smoosh" us at any moment, but He chooses not to because He loves us so much!
So I guess I learned something from my "ant adventure" today. Everything happens for a reason, you know! :D
2 comments:
as I was reading..I kept thinking about the ugly word "SIN" --and how it alway creeps into our lives. We can disguise, cover, stomp out etc., but IT always seems to surface. Even though we may have true confession & repentance.. no guarantee - SIN finds its way back :( (ps: I hate bugs..especially stink bugs!) Mrs N
OH, it made me laugh to read the part about how frightened they must be when they're about to get squashed or vacuumed up. That sounds exactly like me! :) My husband (and pretty much everyone else I know) makes fun of me for it. :) Whenever I see a dead deer on the side of the road, I wonder about the little fawns at "home" waiting for their mommy or daddy to come home. Or how a spider feels to suddenly have a huge foot stomping on it. LOL, I guess it's pretty unrealistic -- they're not people after all. But I just can't help it. Glad to see there's someone like me!! :) :)
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