About 2 months ago I saw a hornet, which I first thought was a wasp, flying around the window in our laundry room, in the basement. I did not think anything of it. I swatted the hornet, put it in the trash and went on with life.
About two weeks had passed and my daughter went downstairs to do some laundry. With an urgent cry “MOM”, she found the laundry room filled with 10 to 15 hornets flying around searching for a way out of the basement window. Okay, now we need to take these invaders a little more serious.
My husband went outside to try to figure out how they were getting into the house. He found that the hornets were using our gas meter as a bridge to travel in and out of our home. My husband’s first reaction was to seal the hole. Being resourceful, he went into the garage and found a used bottle of landscaping glue. He used the glue to seal up the hornets entryway. With his imaginary cape blowing in the wind and his hands on his hips, he thought, I have saved the day! No….!
Two days later we had over 30 hornets taking over our laundry room, aggressively swarming at us whenever we turned on the lights. With the vacuum stick as his sword, my husband filled the vacuum up full of hornets three times. He became a master of catching these mad hornets in the plain air. As they were vacuumed up, these strong little creatures did not give up, they would fight to find every which way to get out of the vacuum.
After days of my husband going in morning and night, vacuuming up these invaders, the weekend came and we took down boxes off wired shelves trying to find where the hornets had made their home. Our laundry room is not completely finished, so you can see the exposed wooden beams, wires and pipes that are normally hidden in a basement ceiling. Not able to find their entry into the basement we gathered each hornet we could into the spinning tornado storm created by the vacuum.
I took a picture as I dumped these pests outside into a cardboard box, watching some try to crawl and fly out of the box into the fresh air. We sealed the box and threw it away in our big green garbage container.
Trying to get a handle on these invaders, I read online that they do not like peppermint and dish soap, so I filled a spray bottle of dish soap and peppermint oil. I went a little crazy spraying the insulation, windows, beams and the exposed sheet rock with this natural formula. I brought in an oil infuser and infused peppermint into the air for about two days. The online websites were right; hornets do not like the spray or the oil in the air, so they started crawling on the ground!
We thought we had them contained in the laundry room until one day I came home for lunch and my daughter was sitting on the coach crying. She had just fearfully battled a hornet in her room for about 30 minutes, trying to sort dirty clothes to take downstairs.
With great fear that these hornets were going to invade the rest of our home, I called a local pest control man and pleaded for him to come and save us from these aggressive invaders. The very kind pest control man came to our home that very cold windy night and crawled up on our washer and dryer with his flash light looking for the hornet’s new home. We had told him what we had done to try to get rid of the feisty flyers. He explained that if we would have called him a month ago when we saw them using our gas meter as a bridge, he could of used a powder to fill the hole and they would have been gone in a day!, What? A day! By sealing the hole we made them mad and angry with no way to get outside
As he shared his wisdom we learned many lessons.
- First lesson, they were not wasps, they were actually hornets.
- Second lesson, they hate light, they become mad and attack.
- Third lesson, do not seal their entrance until the pests have left your home!
As my family has dealt with these hornets for the past couple months, I can see a spiritual connection. These hornets could be a great example of sin or an enemy’s attack on ones life and family.
And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil. Ephesians 4:26-27 NLT
What is a foothold?
In Greek, during biblical times, foothold could have been used as a spot, location, home, opportunity, just to name a couple of examples.
Forgiveness
If we hold onto anger, un-forgiveness, that can open a door, or create a bridge for the enemy to crawl into our lives. We can have pain from our childhood or loved one. A broken marriage. If we do not deal with the hurt and pain; if we just seal up the hole before all the bitterness, pain and anger is dealt with, we can become trapped and tormented by these invaders. They can take over our lives, our homes.
Light
When you shine the light – God’s Word, on these invaders, it makes them swarm, attack, go crazy.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:5 NIV
God’s word is very powerful.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV
Reach out and Pray
Our first step should always be to call for help, PRAY. Seek guidance from someone wise and compassionate.
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NLT
You see, if we would have asked for help before we sealed the bridge into our home we would not have been tormented by the hornets for so long.
I encourage you to seek God for help and guidance when you see just one small, little invader or sin trying to fly into your life; if you do not deal with that little sin, he will bring his friends in and build a nest, and then you have a big mess!