Smooth and Green

“Cursed are you above all the livestock and the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.” Genesis 3:14

We were just getting ready to cut a few of my hydrangeas to take in the house, when my 5YO says:

“Mommy, there’s a snake in your flowers.”

“Where?” I say.

“Right there!” he says.

“I don’t see it.” I say. “Point to it.”

Pointing, very close to its head he says, “Right THERE!”

“Now I see it,” I say. “Watch him while I go get the camera!”

He was very green and slender and only had about four inches of himself sticking out of the flower at any one time. I took several pictures of him and he held perfectly still. He even seemed to be smiling in one of the pictures.

Finally, our hydrangea cutting plan nixed, I decided to goose him out of the flower, just to see how long he really was. He just kept slithering out, all two foot of him, green and slender. I learned later via the internet that he was indeed a Smooth Green Snake. Cute, but a snake nonetheless!

You always see pictures of Adam and Eve under the tree with a huge snake tempting them. I wonder how it might have turned out if the Devil had used a Smooth Green Snake instead, or maybe a common Garter Snake. I guess Adam and Eve were still enough in love with God’s creations not to issue my standard response for a snake sighting of “Get me the shovel!”

You’ll be happy to know that Mr. Smooth Green lived to eat another cricket. I’m learning not to freak out over every snake I see, just most of them. Once I knocked my youngest off the back porch while doing my snake dance and he had a scab form in the shape of a T on his head. Everyone would stop us and ask if he had to have stitches and I would have to tell them that, no, I knocked him off the porch when a snake came after us. They all thought it was pretty funny, except the baby falling off the porch part.

May your temptations be small and obvious this summer, just like your snakes!

And try not to freak out. It can be harmful to the children.

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15