Mice

    Mice terrify me. I could regale you with several paragraphs worth of stories about my encounters with mice in domestic places, but I will spare you the gory details and focus instead on just one plague in particular. 

    I'm not sure when it started, the inkling that perhaps there were unwanted rodents roaming through the school, but I do know the terrified feeling that possessed me one day when someone noticed a mouse darting behind a bench in the back of the room. 

    Evan pulled the bench away from the wall. "Hey! There's a whole bunch of babies back here!" he said excitedly. 

    The classroom immediately became mayhem. The students flocked to the back to see the tiny terrors. I stayed bravely at my desk, a pillar of calm. At least, I hoped that's what my students would think. Meanwhile, my fearless charges captured the unsuspecting mice.

    "Now what are you going to do with them?" I asked, hoping the anxiety didn't bleed into my voice.

    "Can we just take them outside and get rid of them?" Evan asked eagerly. 

    "Sure," I said, relieved that they seemed to have a plan and thankful that this class of first and second graders were capable of protecting their teacher from these frightening beasts. 

    Several days later we had a school board meeting. As we sat stiffly around the table discussing serious matters, we were suddenly disrupted by the arrival of a furry gray creature scuttling around a corner and along the side of the room. Just as my students had a few days ago, the school board men leaped to their feet and dashed after the intruder. Within moments the chase was over, and we returned to the discussion at the table, relaxed and laughing, joking that we should always hire mice to take away the formality of meeting.

    I am amazed how much pandemonium can ensue from the appearance of a mammal that weighs less than an ounce. 

    Turns out the Devil works the same way, at least for me. I can be living in a place of peace and suddenly a little thing will come up and completely wreck the calm. Maybe it's a comment someone makes that I take the wrong way. Maybe it's a rumor I hear about someone else. Maybe it's a snarl of angry threads that I can't seem to untangle. Whatever it is, my peace and calm suddenly evaporates, leaving behind frustration and disappointment.

    Instead of turning to God and trusting Him to deal with the upheavel, I think it's up to me to chase the mouse. I find myself running around trying to deal with it on my own. Rather than successfully dealing with the issue, I exhaust myself working things over and over in my mind. Suddenly I discover the little mouse has grown into a monster.

    When I was able to sit back and trust my school board to take care of the mouse, it didn't grow at all. It was exciting, yes, but I knew the men in the room were bigger than the mouse. 

    I want to learn to depend on God to deal with the little things I face. I want to let go of my mice instead of letting them turn into monsters. Above all, I want to remember that my God will always be bigger than whatever mice the Devil sends out for me to face.