Hopefully, this will soon become habitual activity for me during Tabitha's afternoon nap. I took her for a walk this morning, and she really seemed to enjoy it. I think she got a bug bite, though, on her left knee. This upsets me greatly, but there's nothing really that I could do about it.

Anyway, I must confess that since my declaration of two days ago, I feel sort of nervous about simply rambling through my daily blog time. I suppose that I will write whatever is most important to me on a particular day, so this time will be quite a revealing account of my life priorities. I was also thinking about telling some people in my family about my blog. But, I do write about my sex life on here, which strangely enough, I am totally comfortable sharing with my friends and even strangers, but totally UNcomfortable sharing with my family (with the obvious exception of my huhsband).

Here is what has been on my mind a good bit over the past week. A simple analogy, and one that I have never truly understood until last week sometime. I don't know what brought it to my mind (perhaps it was our bug infested shed out back), but I was thinking about Jonathen Edwards and his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" The most famous segment of the sermon deals with the analogy of a spider, and so as not to embarass myself terribly, I think I will have to quote the actual moment for accuracy and poetry's sake:


The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.

So, this analogy however basic it may seem to truly be, has never fully sunken in until the other day. I realized something about spiders that I have always believed. They are completely loathsome. I HATE spiders. I rejoice in killing them, I believe I would actually like to watch one burn to death in a fire. Call me cruel, but that's just how I feel. With that in mind, I now consider myself in the eyes of God. I am (or was at least) a giant, hairy spider. Nothing about me appeals to Him, I am a disgusting, bloodsucking, creepy pest. But...for some reason (which I now know to be the overwhelming mercy of God) I have not been cast into the fire to justifiably die for being so generally nasty and gross. And, it has nothing to do with me...and THAT, my friends, is mercy. Mercy like a flood, and it covers me now whenever I think of it. I think it must have been my own pride that prevented me from "getting" the whole spider analogy before. As if I, Taylor, could be compared directly to a bug. How foolish of me...and praise God for revealing the truth to me. Because now I can rejoice even more in the Merciful God whom I serve.