Skeeters

A few summers back, my cousin had a June wedding. It was absolutely beautiful... The ceremony, the dress, the reception, their love. On the eve of her wedding, my family went to the rehearsal dinner. It was a fine setup-- there was just enough room for you to grab food inside, and you socialized outdoors while the sun set. It was fabulous. I don't know if your family does this, but my family makes toasts like it's a drinking game. Toast after toast, story after story... We toasted to dozens of 'congratulations!' and 'good luck!'s that evening (with water in my glass, of course!). And, being fourteen at the time, I got a little bored of all of the marriage advice and stories about people I didn't know. So I scoped out the scene. This was when I realized that it was June. At sunset. In Mississippi. Next to a river. We were outside. There were a hundred people at the dinner, and there were five tiki torches to protect us from mosquitoes. I was in a dress. My bare legs were under a table cloth. I was vulnerable there; I hadn't worn repellent. There was no way the smoke from the tiki torches was under the table cloth. But mosquitoes? Oh... You betcha! (Wink) ((Wink.)) I could feel them landing on me; I could feel my skin start to itch; I could feel it happen over and over and over. But I chose to ignore it. This wedding, this uniting of high school sweethearts, was beautiful. Nothing could take my focus from these lovers in love. Weddings are, for me, a reminder of what's to come and that uniting with another person is something wonderful and unexplainable. No skeetos were going to divert my attention from the love in the air. That evening, I went home and did not really notice how bad I was bit. It took a few hours for all of the bites to show. I had nearly seventy. SEVENTY! And I don't know about you, but my mosquito bites not only itch, but they swell to about an inch in circumference, even if I never touch them. It's horrifying. It's the tenth circle of hell. My legs did not itch; they HURT. There was not a patch of skin that had not been affected by these bloodsucking monsters. I didn't sleep for four days. And let's just say I still have scars from those bites. This summer, something similar happened. I took a trip to Tennessee for CHIC... Beautiful. Unexplainable. Wonderful. I learned so much about God and love and God's love and loving God and others and God's love for others and how I should love God by loving others and how others really do have love for God and for other others. Love was in the air. Now, history repeats itself. I'm telling you. Wherever I was unprotected and vulnerable spiritually... I was bit. But I didn't notice until I got home. After the wedding, my legs were killing me of course, but I was infatuated so it didn't matter. But soon, all I had to focus on was my legs that had grown three sizes overnight. Quickly after CHIC, the pain of my bites began to distract me. I wanted so badly to remember CHIC, to remember what God did to me, to remember that love in the air. But my legs just... itched. So I scratched. I made it worse. I hadn't worn repellent. So where does that leave me? I am still recovering from CHIC and absorbing everything I learned. I am still trying not to scratch the ever-present itch of my sin. But it's hard to do both-- serving God as well as sin. It doesn't work. Remember the love in the air... because weddings are always happening, love is ever-present, and God never leaves us, ever. No matter the distraction, it's there. We may be so caught up in our own sin that we don't notice, but that's because we're just scratching our legs. Look around.