Thoughtful About . . . The Fly

by Roseanna White | Sep 12, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized

I was a kid. I don’t even remember how old, probably about ten. My parents were in charge of the youth at our church, which meant I spent a lot of time there. My favorite thing to do? Slip into the quiet sanctuary and just be there. With no milling congregation, no dozens of conversations, no laughter, no music, no mothers calling for the little ones to come to their pew.

Just me. And that certain feeling that this was holy ground.

I grew up in church, I said my prayer for salvation along with the other kids in a children’s church service was I was, oh, five or six. And I meant it. Sure, it took me a lot of years to figure out what it was I had meant, ha ha, but there was never doubt. There was never turning away. There was never backsliding.

There were, instead, these quiet little moments when I brushed up against the divine and realized how much He loved me, in all the wackiest little things.

On this day, I’d meandered to the front of the sanctuary, where the much-disputed red velvet curtain hung on the back wall, a subject of heated debate among the board. My parents were also on the board, so I was aware of this debate. I found it so trivial that I just laughed over it. Take the curtain down, leave it up, what did it matter? Adults, I thought, got hung up on the weirdest things.

Me, I thought about more important things, ahem. Like the next story I would write, whether my mom would let me have Brittney over that weekend, and if my teacher would rearrange our desks soon because I was so tired of sitting beside those stupid boys who thought it was funny to mock everything everyone said. I made it a point never to laugh at them. Eventually they noticed and asked why. My answer? “Because you’re not funny.” Oh yes, brutal honesty from the tweener Roseanna, LOL.

The church was washed with the golden light of a summer evening. Kinda stuffy, as the air was turned off, but not too bad. It was only Sunday night, after all, it hadn’t had a chance to get really hot yet. I meandered to the front of the sanctuary, past the alter railings. Maybe I’d intended to go to the piano, who knew—I was known to trill out Für Elise any time I could.

But a buzzing of a fly disturbed my quiet. Have you ever noticed how loud one little fly sounds in a room with no other noise? So annoying. So there. And my first instinct, when it comes to a fly, is to swat at it.

That afternoon, though, I had a thought of, “No, I’m not going to kill a fly in church.” (Let it be noted I’ve never felt that particular conviction since, LOL.) Instead, I watched it buzz around the vaulted ceilings and land, eventually, on the alter table.

I remember creeping closer, wondering how close I could get before it saw my movement and took off. One step nearer, two. At some point, I recall a strange series of thoughts running through my head. Something that mixed wonder with prayer. Something that made me stretch out in faith. Something that wasn’t exactly Peter walking on water, but which was stepping out nonetheless. I determined that God would hold the fly still, and I could touch it. Pet it. Stroke its wing.

And so I walked up to the table. I reached out. And I stroked its wing.

It’s a small thing. A simple thing. A silly thing. And yet as greater struggles of faith arise in my life, I sometimes think back on that fly. On a child who acted on faith, and who proved that her God heard the smallest, silliest thoughts in her head. And who didn’t mind touching His finger to a pesky little fly so that she could touch hers to it too.

Life is full of flies as well as hurricanes. Bumps as well as canyons. And oh, how nice it is to know that the God who cares about the one also cares about the other. That no matter my words, He listens.

Thank you, Lord.