I can still feel the burning sensation of the stinger, jabbed into my flesh. But honestly the fault was mine.
At one of the grandest camping places in the country (kings-camp.org) our old pop-up is on loan to our son and daughter-in-law. For some time, the hatch that covers the power cord coming out of the thing was broken off. I should have replaced it months ago but didn't.
A few weeks back, my Dad asked if I needed anything from the local camping store. I walked him over to our pop-up trailer, showing him the plastic power cord inlet that had lost its cover. As we peered at the protruding cord, I noticed a wasp on the thing—right there at the opening. I gave the cord a wiggle (not recommended). Immediately, a small squadron of very angry wasps descended on me, one immediately stinging the back of my leg.
Hours later, having foamed the wasps' entrance (aka, the camper's power cord storage inlet) I counted as 12 wasps crawled, tumbled and suffocated out of the opening. Next, we examined the cavity in the wall of the camper, just to be sure there were no more wasps hiding out. What I found was a honey comb, complete with embedded wasp larvae. With long nose pliers, I gently pulled out the honeycomb (photo on this page), observing a few more dead wasps and one on its last legs (literally).
I offer not one, but two spiritual morals to this tale.
Moral #1: Don't delay taking care of the small openings for sin in your life. Left unattended, you're sure to invite trouble…right in the walls of your soul.
Moral #2: If you hang around wasps, you're going to get stung. We cannot play with sin…..