A Snake in the Grass

Fat puffy clouds adorned the pale-blue sky on a beautiful if oven-hot day. I sent Ben out to gather black berries from our bushes on the hill. What a gorgeous day! I mused as I looked past the hot haze toward the mountains.

Ben returned in only moments, empty-handed, a bit pale. (Normally, he would have spent an hour: picking berries, eating them, being distracted by every bug and leaf in his vicinity.) "What’s wrong?" I asked.

"I heard a snake rattle in the leaves." I believe I went a bit pale at that point.

"It rattled? As in rustling through the leaves?"

"No," Ben said. "I heard a rattle and looked down and saw a rattlesnake next to the bushes, by that old railroad tie. So I didn’t pick any berries. I just slowly walked away from it."

I breathed a loud and relieved "thank you Jesus." Lord, thank you for a son who can spot a rattlesnake! And for giving him the wisdom to walk away from it. Slowly.
 Bowing to Ben’s naturalist inclinations, we hopped online and identified the snake as a Timber Rattler. We learned that juveniles like hunkering down in shrubs (like, say, berry bushes) while the adults, in the absence of rocky cliffs, prefer holes in rotting wood (like, say, neglected railroad ties). We also learned that, while they are not typically aggressive, their venom can kill.

(Insert respectful, stunned silence here.)

I considered my options. We could abandon the berry bushes to the snake and start visiting the farmstand up the road. I could banish all children from that hill for the foreseeable future. I could . . .

"I"m going to call Dad!" Ben decided, his excitement mounting as he thought further about his dangerous discovery. When he hung up, he announced: "Dad wants us to use the zoom lens on the camera to take a picture, then email it to him."

(Insert second stunned silence here - not so much of respect this time, but of sheer incredulity.)

My husband, the cloth from which Ben is cut, thought it would be a good idea to go back outside, seek out a venomous snake, and take the time to get a clear photograph. Whereas I — a relocated Yankee suburbanite — was wondering why on earth I was living on a hill in the middle of the woods, sharing my habitat with things like rattlesnakes and scorpions.

A lesson on wifely submission (more likely, a shock response): Ben and I put on our sturdiest sneakers, grabbed the camera, the phone and a big shovel and headed out. (In hindsight: did I really think I would have the wherewithal to hit a snake, should it strike at us? Remember, I’m the one who searches the bedsheets at night with a flashlight, for fear of a 1-inch scorpion waiting to strike.)

I crept down the hill, Ben with camera close behind, my rusty shovel raised, ready to beat that snake into pulp, should we see it. Which we never did (see it, I mean). Ben sighed with disappointment; I exhaled with relief.

Who knows how many rattlesnakes we’ve strolled by in the high grass on this hill, ignorant as to the dangers lurking beneath our feet? The thing is, were I still back in my Boston suburb, I’d be facing different potential dangers: violent crime, traffic accidents. Isn’t this the stuff of life? Every day holds hidden risks that we don’t even know enough to be anxious over.

In the end, the God who made us also keeps us and protects us. My fears and worries are not what guard my children; God Himself does. He has numbered our days. His sovereign hand holds back the rattlesnake, the drunk driver, the dangerous criminal, the deadly disease (unless He allows otherwise). Wherever we wander, our God walks with us and knows the next step. Snakes in the grass are no surprise to Him, never have been.

I entrusted my son’s life to the Lord before he was even born, and have done so a thousand times since. Today, I will entrust Ben to God once more.

(For that reason, and that reason alone, I may let Ben pick blackberries again. Some day.)