It was approximately ten years between my first bee sting and my second. During that time, despite God proving himself faithful in my first allergic reaction, my fear of bees had just kept getting larger and larger. In fact a year before my second sting it had grown to the point where I asked my pastor at university for prayer and advice on how to break that fear in my life.
We were visiting a community in Northern Ontario, running programs at a community centre for the summer months. Early one morning we drove to a lookout point to watch the sun rise over one of the Great Lakes. I was awed by the creativity and passion that God was pouring into it’s constantly shifting beauty. Marvelling even more so, as I thought of what was required in splitting the light spectrum – let alone coming up with the idea of light having the capacity to split into a spectrum in the first place.
I looked over my shoulder and saw a rabbit at the edge of our clearing curiously wriggling it’s nose and staring as the two of us leaned on a railing. It seemed to me that it was similarly amazed and made me think about the love and creativity that God was pouring into creating us as well.
I remember Pastor Doug turning to me and smiling.
“Rusty, as I’ve been praying for you I feel like I want to share a picture that comes to my mind. I imagine a father and son going on a walk together. A bee lands on the son’s hand and the Father kneels beside him and holds his hand up so that they can both see the beauty in the bee. They smile as the bee walks along the boy’s hand licking the sweat off of it before flying away. I believe this is where God wants to take you in your understanding of where he is when you are near a bee.”
He prayed for me and I felt that there was a power behind his prayer. However, while the next time I met a bee I felt a little more coherent, the fear was still there and it felt like there was more to come in this journey.
The Good Argentumware. 