Here in Florida, we have what people call “Love Bugs.” I know exactly why they are called “Love Bugs”, but I don’t like these little critters. Why can’t they get a motel room?
Being closed at home for quite a while is not that exciting. You can only be closed for a while.
On Tuesday, he needed to cross the city in search of office supplies and quick business. It would not be long and he would be home in no time.
“Anything you want me to pick up while I’m away?” I asked the kind lady of the parsonage. I always like to try to help whenever I can.
She is a great shopper, particularly a great thrift store shopper. She knows all the second-hand stores within a 100-mile radius, but more than that, she is known by her first name. Me, across the room, I’m not a very good buyer.
A few times my wife sent me to the store with a list and I could never get everything that was on that list. I don’t know why, but I would miss two or three items from your list. I’m not saying it because the list is too long, that’s probably why, but I’m not saying it.
Knowing this, my wife replied, “No, I can’t think of anything I’d like you to pick up. Drive carefully.” I sighed a deep sigh of relief, knowing that now I wasn’t going to get into any kind of trouble.
Not many places open this time due to closure so I didn’t have a lot of options. Therefore, I did what I was supposed to do as quickly as possible and returned home. Please don’t let this get away, you know who, but I stopped by a drive-through and bought some delicious ice cream. I enjoyed it all the way home. Ice cream is so much more delicious to me when no one knows you’re eating it.
I almost got home when a big dark cloud appeared out of nowhere and hit my truck in the front like it had never hit me before. At first, I thought it was the apocalypse.
When I walked through it, I realized that it had hit, or rather, I was hit, a bunch of “Love Bugs” and they were smeared all over the window and the front of my truck. It used to have a silver truck, now it was almost completely black, at least at the front.
I know they are “Love Bugs”, but at the time, I didn’t feel any kind of love towards them. I felt the exact opposite, but I won’t mention it.
When I walked through the front door of the house, my wife saw that I was more agitated than ever. I even closed the door behind me, indicating how aggravated I was.
“What happened?”
I just looked at my wife and then said, “Those lousy Love Bugs attacked me while I was driving, and they’re all over my truck. I’m never going to put them down.”
With that, I went, got a bucket of water and tried to clean them out of my truck.
I noticed my wife was smiling when I left and she said, “You should drive more carefully.” Then he snickered. I hate when he laughs.
No matter how hard I worked to remove those bugs from my truck, I couldn’t remove them all. It was a dark reminder of the love for insects.
When I walked in, my wife said, “Well, did you get them all out of your truck?” Then he gave me one of his infamous giggles.
All day when he looked at me, he was laughing.
The next morning my wife had to go to the store to buy some groceries. When she closed the door behind her, she said, “I guess I’ll have to drive carefully.” Then he snickered again.
A little over an hour later, he came back, and when he walked through the door, I noticed something was wrong. I asked him if something was wrong, and all he said was, “No, it’s okay. I’ll take care of it.”
I knew from her behavior that something was wrong and something that she really didn’t want me to know. That piqued my curiosity.
In a few minutes, I looked out the window and there she was with a bucket of water washing the front of her truck. I had my suspicions, which turned out to be correct.
When she walked in the front door, I was waiting for her and I said, “Something wrong with the love bug?” With that, I not only laughed, but laughed out loud hilariously.
“Maybe,” I laughed, “you should drive a little more carefully.”
His gaze informed me that he didn’t find it funny, which made it even more fun for me.
Thinking about that, I remembered what the prophet Amos once said. “Will two be together, unless they agree?” (Amos 3: 3).
Walking the same path together, we experience the same. Sometimes we forget, I know. I am learning not to criticize other people for what they are going through at that moment because it is possible that I will go through that same experience tomorrow.
