A spiders need

Let me start out with saying, I hate spiders. They actually terrify me as a general rule. So when I saw this spider on my porch with a crazy web My immediate impulse was to kill it. But it had an egg sac and it was hovering pretty closely to it. I was suddenly intrigued instead of repulsed. It was going to have babies. Again, Normally I would have been petrified to imagine hundreds of baby spiders pouring out onto my porch, but for some reason, I just couldn't bear to kill it.

I watched that spider daily and it would get closer and closer to it's egg sac. Protecting it. Caring for it. After a little while I noticed that there were two large bugs captured in the web, and I thought maybe they are about to hatch. I don't know how spiders work with their young, but it just brought the idea of providing for the family. So in my mind I went with it.

After watching it for a few days, I noticed the egg sac had opened, I saw quite a few microscopic things which I can only assume were baby spiders. But they weren't moving. Again, I don't know how it works, but I watched daily and it didn't seem to come to fruition. So I watched as the next day or two there was another egg sac. It seems she was trying again.

The same scenario repeated. Again I watched her hover closer and closer. Again I saw the failure to bear fruit through her toil and hard work and care. It happened a third time as well. She didn't seem to realize that it was perhaps to cold for the little ones. She just kept trying. I guess it was her instinct to bring life. To nurture. To multiply. She toiled so hard, but to no avail.

Finally after all the eggs had hatched I watched her sitting there. It didn't seem like she moved for over a week. I thought perhaps she had died. I still couldn't bear to do anything with her web, it just seemed wrong to move it. A leaf somehow fell into the web and she was under it. As if it fell to cover her and protect her during her grief. I blew on her a little today and she moved.

I couldn't help but feel some sort of kinship to this spider. I couldn't help but think of the times I had toiled so hard, and nothing came from it. I couldn't help to think of my own desires to love and nurture and multiply. I believe all women, have an almost primal instinct to care for young, to nurture and bring life. I thought about how that need has been unfulfilled, and how I'm not sure it will ever happen.

I wish there was something I could do to help it. But it is a small thing that would never understand my attempts to help. It is small and I am big. But I still felt a kinship through the nature of all life that was created, the smallest to the largest has a need for love of some sort.

I thought about the leaf, that became a shelter for the now cold and despairing spider. And I thought of how many times God has sheltered me from the cold.

It's just a spider you might say, and I say, your right. But somehow I felt connected to something I am normally terrified of. I felt compassion for a creature I would normally loathe.

I'm thankful for a creator that loves his creations. Small and Large.

He said in the word that he cared for the sparrows, and not to fear, I am more important than many sparrows.

Loosely translated, but that's what it says.

Thankful for the Love of Christ, and that he died for me. And he gives me shelter when I feel cold and alone.

God bless