Creeped Out at Halloween

We just finished the Halloween season. I remember when I was a young girl at my grandfather's tobacco farm. My older teenage cousins, Patty and Sherilyn would create a spook house for all of the younger cousins that weren't as familiar with farm ways. We would first be spun around in circles and then they'd walk us thru the tobacco barn. We'd hold on to Patty's waist and creep through the barn. If you've never walked thru a tobacco barn, they are dark except for flames – I guess they were pilot lights - around in the barn. You could hear the rustling of the leaves and it was creepy. Usually somewhere along the way Patty would scream and turn around and look wide eyed at me and say, “What was that!" Then she turn around, I’d grab her waist and we’d creep a little further. She would take us up stairs, down narrow paths, back down again. Every 10 or so steps she would jump, turn around, and again say with her eyes huge, “Did you hear that?” Then we'd creep a little further. At the end of the creep through the barn one Sherilyn would be hiding and throw a chicken or eggs, or straw onto us. Imagine how fast I, this little girl who knew nothing about farms, ran scared to death. I knew it had to be a mouse or some other spook jumping on me. They would just laugh and laugh at me. In later years we were talking about these fun times when my mother freaked out. “Those barns are full of rats, rats that are knee high! Papa has put rat poison out everywhere! It is amazing you weren’t bit, or dead!”

By God's grace, I never saw a real rat there until I was 16 or 17 years old and even then it was every bit as big as a cat or a dog. By God's grace we never saw the poison set out for these rats or any dead rats.

Many times at the end of facing a trial or difficult season of life, I look back at the mercy He has shown me. If I had seen what was all around me in the midst of the trial I would have panicked and probably given up or run for my life, escaping into avoidance. I thank Him every day for the mercy he shows to not light up every evil lurking around us. He walks right in front of us or right behind us shining the way. He allows us to see only what we can handle. He protects us from the flying rats, poison, and crazy cousins of the world.

Psalm 119:105 "Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light for my path." I am so glad he only provides a light just enough for the step that I am on. He protects me from the overwhelming big picture.