Fear is Fraternizing with the Enemy

Merriam Webster’s Definition of Fraternize: to associate on close terms with members of a hostile group especially when contrary to military orders were ordered not to fraternize with the enemy.

This was my word today.  I could argue it all day and still be wrong.  I could say I have reason to fear, legitimate reasons.  And at the end of the day I would have been “fraternizing with the enemy.”  My God is greater and defeated my enemy 2,000 years ago.  Then why do I feel fear?  I wrote an article called “Spider” back in July.  You can revisit it if you’d like.  Basically what it came down to is that I saw and killed the largest spider I have ever seen in Wisconsin. I found it on the riser on the second from the top basement step.  

Since that time I have checked my shoes and clothes for spiders, and often carried a hammer with me when I went down into the basement. I was creeped out at every web that I thought I felt and acutely aware of my surroundings.  I sprayed pesticide. After a few months went by, just when I thought the danger was over, another one appeared.  I used the hammer and got him.

My nephew took the picture of the spider I had taken back in May and sent it in to a website to have it examined to see what we were dealing with.  I seriously had been too afraid and stuck my head in the sand hoping it simply would go away.  Something (likely Holy Spirit) told me it was a “ground spider.”  I didn’t know what that was but the expert on the website said indeed it was a ground spider.  It turns out that even though they are ugly looking, they are not venomous.  They catch and eat their prey on the ground not using webs, sort of like hunters.  They may form a silken mesh around their “nest” and will likely not bite unless the female’s egg sack is threatened.  It is from the family Gnaphosidae.  They live in every continent except Antarctica.   That may be more information than you care to know but trust me, I didn’t set out to know it either.  But there is something to be said for becoming educated on what I was afraid of.

I now can eliminate little spiders, which is really all the rest of them, without a problem and with maybe just a tissue.  In the past I would have hollered for John to kill it or used some kind of tool to get rid of the unwelcome intruder.  It took me five months to do what I should have done in the beginning and educate myself on them.  But I couldn’t get myself to look at the photo I took, much less do research.  I now can look at the photo on my phone, enlarge it and even appreciate its hairy legs. That last part may be a bit of an exaggeration but it feels good because I couldn’t even joke about it for five months.  I have come a long way as now I’m armed with knowledge.  I’ve taken more precautions as I filled what I believe was the nest area with insecticide foam where I think they were getting in.  I don’t have to consider moving to Antarctica after all.

Getting back to the title of the article, here is my point: you will always be a slave to what you fear.  For five months those spiders owned a part of me and Satan no doubt loved to see me uneducated and fearful.  I’m “almost” challenged by the spiders now, like I’m going to win and it feels good. Was I fraternizing with the enemy?  I would like to say no but I’d be wrong.  My imagination would run wild as I would lay in bed thinking of one of those “things” walking on me.  I had to fix this one in a process of baby steps, and it would not have been the first time in my life that I’ve had to do that. 

My advice is this; if you are afraid of something research it.  God isn’t the one who has something to hide and He is greater than your fear.  I tried really hard to live as normally as possible and go into the basement whenever I needed to.  I may have had to do it afraid but I did it.  What a relief, I may see another one of my new friends again some day and maybe not.  I now know what I’m dealing with and by that I mean when I think about the spiders I am thinking with a clear, sound mind.  Not scrambling thoughts covered in fear controlling me.  I have learned vague imaginations are always reduced in size when God’s truth is shed on them.