Lord of the Fleas

Every year, the week before Easter, our church has a special week devoted to prayer and specific Bible study. Every year, there is spiritual growth in the church as a result of that week. And every year, that week is full of multiple difficulties and trials.

This year was no different. It was the week that the kids were all at each other's throats, with a particularly nasty brand of infighting. It was the week that the schedule did not go as planned (not that this doesn't happen often, but it was particularly noticeable this time). And it was the culmination of the weeks of mystery bugs.

A few weeks before, the weather had warmed up to almost summer temperatures (well, actual summer temperatures for Ontario). The kids were outside a lot, playing in the newly growing grass. And they were getting some bug bites, of which I thought nothing, because I'd seen some mosquitoes out for an early spring rendezvous. But then the weather got colder and rainier and the kids were inside. They were still getting bug bites, and so were we. And as the tallies started ramping up to 10-15 new bites on at least one of us every day, the anxiety started creeping in. My first thought was "fleas", because we have a dog, and because the bites were consistent with flea bites. But I couldn't find evidence of fleas anywhere, and they're usually not too hard to spot. So then we started thinking "bed bugs"... Uggghh! You know that creepy-crawly feeling you get when you think hard enough about little biting bugs? Well, we were feeling it all the time. We searched the beds, the mattresses, the couch... to no avail. There were no visible bugs in the house, and yet "they" were eating us alive.

So by the beginning of the Week of Prayer, as I was writing on anxiety, I was being forced to actively implement the things I was writing about. My prayers went something like this: "Lord, something is eating us, and we can't figure it out, and if it's bed bugs, I don't even want to think about the cost and effort to get rid of them, not to mention the fact that I'll probably have the creepy-crawlies for the rest of my life! Please help me to cast these anxieties on you, knowing that you are the Lord of even the tiniest, unseen bug. And Lord, please give us wisdom to know how to proceed! Please show us what is biting us! And whether you do that or not, you are the God who brought the gnats and flies in to Egypt and back out again, so you are able to command these mystery bugs to move out. I fully believe you are able to cast them out of this house, but if it takes me lots of work and money, help me to be content in your sovereign care for me."

By mid week, I was starting to feel desperate. I mean, anxiety is hard enough to deal with when you know all the variables and they're just beyond your control. But it's far more difficult when you are not in control AND you have no idea what is going on. And yet, even then, we must fight to cast those anxieties on the one who IS in control and knows perfectly well what is going on, and what the outcome will be.

Now I know that God does not always answer our prayers in the way that we would like, or in the way we deem best. And in those cases, He still has our best in view, and knows we need something other than we have asked for. But I am writing this blog post because sometimes He does answer our prayers swiftly and just as we have asked, in ways so clear that it cannot be coincidence and must be the work of our caring and powerful Father, and I am so compelled to greater faith in His mighty care for us, even in the small things, that it must be shared.

On Wednesday morning, I was so tired of the itching and the kids' complaining and the uncertainty of the source of all this that my prayer was simply, "Lord, show us the bugs and/or march every last one of them out of this house and far away! Just order them to go!" And I believed He could do it, but I admit that I was expecting to be taught some patience and hard work instead.

Well, Wednesday afternoon, as I was doing the laundry, I noticed that the dog's bed was significantly dirtier than it had been the previous day, so I figured I should throw it in the wash. Now I had checked the bedding several times before and seen nothing, but as I lifted the blankets out... yep, there they were - those dirty little creatures, jumping around all over the place. And while many people might be horrified at the sight of a bunch of fleas making a home in the dog bed, I was actually relieved to see them. Mystery solved! And I was ready to take anything easier to deal with than bed bugs. So we did a bunch of laundry and vacuuming, and quarantined the dog outside because right at that moment, we didn't feel up to dealing with a bath, and didn't have the necessary supplies on hand anyway.

Since the weather was reasonably nice, she ended up staying outside for a couple days before we got around to bathing her. But we finally decided we'd better just get it done. So we brought her back in and soaped her up and then ran her coat through with a flea comb, expecting from the number of bugs we'd found in her bed that she'd be horribly infested. But we did not find a single one. Or a single egg. She was completely free of any sign of fleas. And from that weekend on, the bites stopped. I was fairly diligent about the laundry and vacuuming for another week or so, but even that dropped back to its normal schedule, and they haven't returned. And I have no explanation for it other than that God commanded those bugs to leave, and out they went.

So I just want to testify to the fact that God is in control even of the movements and lives of tiny, annoying, biting bugs, and that He cares not only for our major life decisions and great crises, but also for just how long a bunch of relatively insignificant and certainly invisible fleas will be allowed to bother your family. He is also fully able to answer prayers for miracles with the miraculous. So may we be spurred on to pray more often, with more faith, even about more insignificant things.