When a wasp stops being a wasp

Every year around this time, when the temperature drops to the 30's and 40's at night, and the leaves turn yellow and fall off the trees, the wasps start dying. They find their way into my house, through the fireplace, through cracks in the door, through secret entrances into my warm house that only they know about.

They can't fly anymore - the cold is more than their little bodies can take. Everything that makes them wasps disappears. So they roam around the floor until they just give up and die. I find little wasp corpses in corners, under chairs, and pressed up against the wall until the end of November or so.

Last night as I was getting ready to take a shower, I saw a wasp in the corner of the bathroom, grounded, obviously on his last leg. He wasn't a threat but I hung my clothes up a little higher than usual just to be careful. As I showered, I thought about how in different circumstances, such as the wasp being healthy and angry, it would be very different to be cooped up in a small room with one. Scary, nerve-wracking, and maybe even deadly to some people.

But not now in this situation. It couldn't harm me unless I went out of my way to be harmed, such as trying to pet it or maybe put it in my mouth, as my cats have done and learned the hard way that a grounded wasp can still be a dangerous wasp. This particular wasp was dead within an hour of me finding it. Something powerful and dangerous all of a sudden no longer a threat. A wasp that was no longer a wasp.

I just finished reading The Shack for the first time about a month ago. I'm guessing there are some of you out there who read it and loved it, maybe it even changed your life. Then there are some of you who wouldn't go near it with a ten foot pole because of all of the things you've heard and read and researched about it. It's too blasphemous to even warrant a read, much like the reaction during the early days of Harry Potter. Others of you probably read it, thought it was interesting, and then didn't really think about it again.

A few years ago, I was in the camp that wouldn't go near it with a ten foot pole. But then a Great Sadness came into my life in early 2010. And just as I was healing from that, another season of loss and pain happened in early 2012. Between the two events, I had no choice but to look God hard in the face, cry to him, be angry and sad, and question much of what I had taken as truth simply because I had been told it my whole life. I needed God to be real to me after these two losses. And he was. So when I finally decided to read this book, I switched camps. I loved it and will probably read it again at some point.

If you haven't read The Shack, I don't want to give it away to you in case you do decide to someday read it. But it centers around the main character Mack having to return to the shack, which is the source of a great pain and loss in his life. When he gets to the shack, there's a surprise visitor (or rather three) waiting there for him. He's able to sort through much of his grief and find healing in unique and powerful ways. And God becomes very real to him through it.

God is sending me back to my shack. I was hoping he wouldn't, but he is. He's sending me right back into a situation that caused tremendous pain and heartache. I've spent the last week alternating between feeling fine about it and then being scared out of my mind and not being able to stop crying about it. But it is what is - I will be back there whether I want to be or not. And God will need to be real and he is going to need to be there every moment of that situation or I won't be able to do it.

The other thing that Mack has to deal with during his time at the shack is forgiveness. I grew up a Christian. I can tell you the pat answers for everything pertaining to forgiveness. But I'll tell you what - when faced with having to go back to my shack and deal with someone who crushed me, all of a sudden I realize that I don't have a clue what it really means to forgive in the way that God forgives me. Nor do I know how to do it. The anger and the bitterness and the hatred in my heart seem to be more powerful than any forgiveness I've ever known about.

But what I learned last night from having the wasp in the bathroom while I showered is that even the things that are powerful and dangerous and potentially deadly can be rendered benign in the right moment. When something loses its power, it can't win anymore. No matter how much it might try, like the grounded wasp clinging to life, it just can't win. A grounded wasp, though it still looks like a wasp on the outside, stops being what makes a wasp a wasp when it's cold, grounded, and dying.

I'm not quite there yet with my shack situation but I do know that there was a time not that long ago when the thought of going back and having to see someone I had hoped I would never have to see or talk to again would have been nothing but terrifying for me. But (I think and hope) the power has been lost now. Just like that wasp, it can't do real damage to me unless I try really hard to let it (as in putting it in my mouth. That won't be happening.) Now it's simply a matter of letting God teach me how to forgive. The wasp has stopped being a wasp.

This morning I read this:

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:2-4)

I can't say that I'm overjoyed at having to return to my shack and all of the flood of emotions I am going to have to deal with the entire time I'm there. It will be a trial. I'm going to be angry, I'm going to have to keep a very tight rein on my tongue, and I will probably cry a lot behind closed doors. But I eagerly await and long for the perseverance, maturity, and completeness that will come because of this, and the chance to learn and see what God really means when he says that he's forgiven me.