When Hornets Come

A few days ago my oldest daughter, Lillian, was walking along a sidewalk near some shops when she noticed a big, crumpled paper bag lying discarded in the gutter. A FedEx truck zipped down the street and pulled up against the curb, rolling over the paper bag as it did so. All at once thousands of angry hornets exploded into the air! What had appeared to be a crumpled, paper bag was actually a hornets’ nest that had fallen from a tree overnight and rolled into the gutter. The FedEx driver quickly decided it was a bad time to make a delivery. He zipped away down the street.

It wasn’t so easy for Lillian…

Being eight months pregnant, she’s beyond the stage where zipping away down a street is possible. The best she could manage was a determined speed walk back towards a shop. The hornets were headed straight for her—an angry yellow wall, buzzing as it advanced. She knew she wouldn’t make it in time, the hornets were coming too quickly. She was about to be stung a lot.

Then a tremendous gust of wind blew, seemingly out of nowhere.

It had been a calm day up until then. The wind hit that wall of hornets and scattered them in all directions, except one. Lillian made it safely to the shop without a single sting.

When she texted me this story my eyes filled with tears. I knew God had saved her from being stung. Then memories began to play through my mind, one after another. I remembered moments when I’d prayed fervently and desperately that God would protect this same girl as she was growing up, from all kinds of “hornets” that came her way. Sometimes He did. But she was stung a lot.

Then I recalled the many ways in which God provided during those painful times. Sometimes it seemed like He wasn’t going to, but then He did. Sometimes it felt like it wouldn’t be enough, but then it was—always enough for the moment at hand.

Sometimes God sends a gust of wind to scatter the hornets and sometimes He doesn’t. But He is always at work. Always walking with us, accessible to us. No matter what happens next, even in the darkness, even when there are hornets—He is our hope, our light, our strength, our everything we need, even when we are stung. And in Him, through His infinite and indestructible love, we have victory.

Psalm 118:11-14—“They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me; in the name of the LORD I will surely cut them off. They surrounded me like bees; they were extinguished as a fire of thorns; in the name of the LORD I will surely cut them off. You pushed me violently so that I was falling, but the LORD helped me. The LORD is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation.”

Blessings to you today,

~Amy