the pesky little tick

Walking through a dead, grassy field today, I found myself reminded of the season I spent in Georgia. "Christy...you're in Canada now...there are not ticks or snakes under these piles of brush." Spending most of my growing up years in Northern Maine, I was used to free, mostly clean and critter-free woods. Working at an outdoor day camp in the middle of a humid Georgia summer changed forever my perspective on walking in the woods. I could no longer stroll, eyes to the sky, just wandering wherever my feet took me. I had to be alert, intentional, deliberate. Danger, icky bugs, and poisonous plans lurked around every corner. Poison ivy, poison oak, poison spiders...The only question I found myself asking time and time again in the woods was..."what can I step on?"

One critter in particular which I was not over fond of was the 'tick'.
People talk about ticks and you think nothing of them until they're on you.
The worst part about a tick is that you don't always recognize its presence right away.
A tick can jump, leap or cling to you at a moment's notice and until you realize it, you're stuck with the consequences - which if not treated in a timely manner can lead to sickness and perhaps death.

The first time I heard tell of these sickening little creatures we were on a nature walk with a group of counselors - doing prep work and exploring the trails we would be taking campers on for the remainder of the summer. Our leader convinced me that as long as I sprayed just my feet and ankles with bug spray, the ticks would stay away. I believe him...until people started finding "super ticks" on their shoulders...faces...heads...and backs. ICK! How did those get there? I thought we'd prepared and cleaned ourselves up enough that we couldn't be touched! Nevertheless, the ticks found a way. I was no longer convinced that merely covering over one area of myself would prevent tick encounters.

I became obsessed with checking myself for ticks...and had at least a dozen encounters. Thankfully, none of them ever embedded in me deep enough to need medical attention. What's the scariest part about having an encounter with a pesky little tick? Well, the first part we've already explored - you don't always recognize it's there. The second and perhaps more important aspect is that once you do recognize its presence, it doesn't leave easily. A simple sweep of the hand does nothing but raise one's anxiety level in realizing this little sucker is literally stuck to them.

Hitting, patting, scrapping...none of this will remove the tick...and if the slight possibility of it actually working does occur...the tick usually quickly attached itself to the finger, hand, etc. which was sweeping it away. This doesn't make the situation any better. To remove a tick, one must squeeze the surface of the skin and pull the tick away from the skin. Sometimes we don't catch these surface dwelling ticks and they somehow bore their way beneath our skin - this requires some serious digging on behalf of a medical professional.

So why all this elaborate talk about ticks? I was reminded in the field today that ticks are sort of like the sin in our lives. Sometimes we're just walking along, uncovered, unprepared, unknowledgeable about what's around us, unfamiliar with the woods which we seek to explore - and we believe what others tell us in terms of "getting by" or "making things right". Much like ticks, sin attaches itself to our lives in such a way that we don't always notice it right away. If we leave it long enough that area of our lives will likely swell, rage with infection, and make us absolutely sick. The tick, or sin will become so engorged we won't be able to fathom how it ever got rooted beneath our skin in the first place.

Another aspect of this I realized is that sin is never easily swept off the surface - it fights, it clings, it burrows, and if we try to approach it with the naive belief that we can somehow sweep it away, it will undoubtedly attach itself somewhere else - likely the nearest exposed area it sees. Getting rid of ticks can be painful and hard work...it can be frustrating and hurtful and sometimes seem not worth the work it requires - but it's necessary. Not dealing with it will lead to rotting flesh. We need to approach the sin areas of our lives with intention, a deliberateness that is willing to pinch however hard it takes to squeeze the rotting goop out of us.

Sometimes the sin our our lives...much like an engorged tick, is so deeply rooted, that it requires the assistance of a "medical professional" or a brother/sister in Christ to support us in the situation. Christ created the "body", the "church" because we are relational people - and we need one another to function, to thrive. We are called to love and serve one another in such a way that we reflect the heart of the Kingdom, the Father's heart. "Where two or more are gathered, He is in their midst" (Matthew 18:20).

With all this said, I feel as though I need to make one final thing clear - just because ticks are around and the risk of them attaching to our lives is available daily - does not mean we are to walk around living in fear of these ticks...of sin. We need to walk boldly and confidently by the power of Christ in us, as the Bible instructs us - not in fear. When we accept Christ as our Savior, the old man is gone and we are given a new nature, created to be like Christ Jesus. This doesn't mean that "ticks" no longer exist, just that we walk with greater awareness and preparedness when we know they are around.

As Christians, we also become more accustomed and consistent in "checking ourselves" before the Lord to see if there is any sinfulness in our hearts or lives. Checking and examining oneself is vital to our spiritual health and growth, as well as uncovering those pecky little 'ticks' we didn't realize took up residence on the surface/under our skin!