Complicated Hope

Bees are not my favorite insect. I see their beauty – fat little, airborne, gravity-defying pollinators who make our world more beautiful and bountiful with flowers and food. Yet, seeing their usefulness and recognizing their magnificence does not mean I like them.

Actually, I have a healthy fear of them. After emergency room trips from childhood through adulthood after bee stings, I feel quite justified in my panic. I’ve learned to avoid clover fields, avoid trash bins and look closely at flower beds during yard work.

Moving to Illinois, I was so surprised to find that fall was “Bee Season”. They are everywhere — my first Illinois sting happened inside a restaurant!

Then came 2020. Quarantine. Lock downs. Deaths. Illness. And bees didn’t seem so bad.

As students began to return to the University, I found myself helping with check-in procedures. I quickly volunteered to be the contact person at the drive-up entrance. I am not exactly an “outdoors girl” but sitting in the sunshine, I could remove the dreaded mask.

It was a long check-in procedure, spread over many days and I found myself with time. Of course, I took a book. Sitting in the sun with my coffee and a book was peaceful. The breeze was soft and lovely and though I was unaware of the bees swarming around me, I found I was not concerned.

“These bees will leave you alone if you sit still,” I told the burly football player who shrieked as he jumped with surprising agility when a bee flew near his ear.

I sat with bees for several days. I watched some people flee from them. When no one was around, the bees would buzz my coffee cup from curiosity, but never moved to hurt me. As is often the case, God began to teach me as I sat and watched His creation.

I was startled to learn: the bees were never the problem. They are merely doing what they were made to do – be bees. My fear was the problem. My anxiety, swinging my arms, yelling – all of that motion caused the bees to see me as a predator and they were protecting their hive, the effort of all their work.

As I acted in fear, the bee reacted in defense. Soon, we were viewing each other as the enemy. That was a lie. I was afraid for my safety, the bee was afraid for his. Yet we both were reacting to a lie.

This repeats itself daily in the body of Christ. Someone is different than us. Yet, they are doing what God called them to do. We are threatened because it is different from our calling so we react in fear. We yell, we point out their differences and then we began to see each other as the enemy.

I have seen this in the realm of adoptions. Foreign adoptions and domestic adoptions. Without the conscious effort to celebrate the formation of a family, we could easily justify one over the other and feel quite self-righteous in our stand. Why adopt overseas when children in our country need families? Why adopt locally when children in orphans in foreign lands have no hope?

Enemies. Predators. Swinging arms and stinging each other with words and accusations. Destroying each other. Destroying what God created.

We are called to sit with bees. To sit with those in the Family of God who have different design and callings. If the person next to us is not walking contrary to the world of God, we are called to look at them as God’s creations and support them as they pursue what God has put in their heart.

Let them be who God made them to be. Be confident in who God called you to be.

Sit with Bees.

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
    the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know
    that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In his hand is the life of every living thing
    and the breath of all mankind.” Job 12:7-10