Week 4: Mastering the "Mosquito Dance"

One of my favorite places in Upstate New York is The Root Glen at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. Owned by the College, the Glen is filled with winding red shale paths lined with towering trees, and an expansive garden filled with different species of flowers. On Wednesday evening, in spite of the insanely hot weather, I decided to go for my run in the Glen. Ever since I did cross-country, I've grown to love trail running. The experience of moving through the rhythms and images of nature really invigorates my spirit. But with the hot summer weather comes the season's star pest: mosquitos. Before my run on Wednesday, my mom warned me that the mosquitos would be in the Glen ready to attack. But that certainly didn't stop me from wanting to get close to God in a more natural element. I went in with the hope of staying cool from the heat (pssh...didn't happen), and I came out with this week's lesson from God.

This past week I was able to run for 90 seconds at some intervals, but then 3 minutes at other intervals (hooray for the increase!). But lately I've been appreciating the walk breaks--it gives me an opportunity to reflect on the progress God and I are making. So I started off with my usual 5-minute warm-up as I approached the entrance to the Glen. The shade from the trees was refreshing, although I could still feel the heavy humidity in the air. So far, no mosquitos in sight. I then went into my first 3-minute interval of running. The combination of hearing the symphony of cicadas, the crunching of red shale under my shoes, and seeing the afternoon sun slide through the canopy of trees---all of it brought so much joy into my heart.

Unfortunately that joy was soon short-lived when suddenly I heard a high-pitched "Bzzzzzz!" whizzing by my ear. Oh, it's only one mosquito, I thought, so I just swatted the air with my hand and kept going. But they kept coming, and before I knew it, I was doing the "mosquito dance"---swatting my hands like an octopus with tentacles around my head, and jerking my body like a fish out of water--trying to inch my way through the trails. Thank goodness no one was around to see me! No matter how fast I ran, the mosquitos were faster, so I decided to bolt out of the Glen and finish my run on the campus. I was a little frustrated (note to self: get bug spray), but I still felt the same joy and energy on the Hamilton campus as I did in the Glen. I wasn't going to let some needle point-size insects steal that from me!

Did you know that we deal with mosquitos every day? I'm not just referring to the blood-sucking insects--I'm talking about those little problems that we blow out of proportion, preventing us from continuing our race. Or maybe we do the mosquito dance in attempt to shove those problems to the side, but soon they come back--only this time there are more of them. We can flap our hands and thrash our bodies until our limbs fall off, but those little pesky problems will never go away. In Proverbs 24:16, King Solomon writes, "for though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity." There are two different types of "mosquito dances": the first one is what I just described above. The second dance involves us flapping our hands, but in such a way that we keep moving forward. We don't allow the problems to steal our joy.

Sometimes during our mosquito dance, we loose energy to keep swatting and moving forward. That is when we need a secret weapon--that extra can of OFF! bug spray in our back pocket. For me, I rely completely on God's strength to help me through all of the "mosquito attacks" in my life. I wait for Him to make His move if I'm stuck in the wilderness. He gave me the Bible as my own figurative can of bug spray. So whenever I feel an attack coming on, I think of a verse to repel those little problems away. One of my favorite verses to use is Isaiah 40:31: "...but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." I repeated this verse over and over as I was running around the hot Hamilton campus, and in return He brought me out of the attack so I could be free to praise Him and soak in the magnitude of His beautiful creation.

I encourage you to find your figurative can of bug spray (if you need some inspiration, you can get the real stuff, too). You may be dealing with a swarm of mosquitos that you can't seem to get through. But you can master the "Mosquito Dance"--it's as simple as finding your figurative can of bug spray, smiling at the mosquito bites on your body, and moving to the notes of nature instead of the pitches of your problems.