You haven’t heard of vine snakes?? I assure you, they are real and not some made up creature that grandmas use at story time to keep kids out of the woods. I myself have been viciously attacked by said vine snake on an otherwise seemingly fun day spent with my husband hiking mountain trails last summer.
Let me back up and say, I’m not much of a hiker kind of girl. In my vain imagination, I’d like to think of myself as an outdoorsy girl that isn’t afraid of bugs and snakes, but I usually trip and fall whilst running away from bumblebees (this really just happened a few weeks ago. I ran for 10 minutes straight trying to get away from an overly intrusive bumblebee).
So suffice it to say, me going hiking was an attempt at making my new husband think I was a capable, strong Amazon type woman. I think he figured out my subterfuge after a few minutes of me lagging behind him and interjecting little scared remarks as we climbed up boulders inching our way to a heavily wooded area filled with, you guessed it, vine snakes.
We set across the field, not able to see where we were stepping or what we were stepping on, when suddenly, and very stealthily I might add, a vine snake wrapped itself around my leg! To which I yelled, “A snake just wrapped itself around my leg!”
And my really sweet, kind husband, gently coaxed me out of the full blown panic attack that was building. He assured me that snakes don’t wrap themselves around our legs, unless you’re in the jungle somewhere with a python. It was only a vine that attacked me.
After we laughed at my expense for a while, he lovingly named my new friend the vine snake and it’s stuck with us.
I started thinking how many adventures have I missed out on because of fear? Fear of things that don’t even really exist? Because the truth is that the whole vine snake incident rattled me so much that we stopped short about a quarter mile from the top of the mountain ridge, where the best sights lay below. I could have experienced the birds eye view of the valley below.
Isaiah 41:13 says:
For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.
How I wish I would have stopped in that moment and asked God to guide me and take me by the hand, instead of letting fear rob me of the blessing ahead.
What about you friend, what vine snake are you letting hold you back from moving forward onto the next adventure God has for you? What sights are you missing out on because of imaginary scenarios playing out in your head? It’s time to let those vain imaginations go and just take God’s hand. New and amazing experiences are waiting for you.
