Recently I moved into a new house with some wonderful friends. I have really love it, the late night talks, the early morning coffee, and the quaint rooms.
Each corner of the house is filled with beautiful, unique, and practical things. Even though I spent a lot of time at the house before living here, when I moved in it instantly felt like a safe, loving, welcoming house. Every corner felt this way, except the basement.
The basement is a great place to store extra clothes for the winter, furniture we aren't using, or the odds and ends that don't really belong anywhere else in the house, but you just might need someday. It also is where the laundry machine is kept, which means I need to go down there every 2 weeks.
The first time I saw the basement I was a little scared. If you asked my roommate my first reaction was to try to get her to come down with me, so I didn't have to go alone. It is a spiderwebbed, decaying cement basement filled with many small nooks and different rooms. She assured me that yes, she too was scared at first, but got used to it and it was fine now.
"You'll get used to it," was what I heard every time I feared the basement.
She was right, I was slowly getting used to it. Running up and down the stairs more often and feeling more free from the fear each time. And because nothing had ever happened to me when I was down there for my laundry, to turn on the fuse that blew out due to the air conditioner, or do help my roommate pick up the coat rack that fell for the third time that night, it was beginning to feel safe.
So on Friday night when I was headed down the stairs to move my laundry from the washer to the dryer, I didn't have a second thought. I hit the light and began to turn the corner to go down the stairs, when I saw the shadow of something fly across in front of the light. Instantly I thought it was a bat, but then told myself that was crazy, it was probably a moth or maybe even secretly I hoped a butterfly. I called out for reinforcements before going any farther. Thankfully, Dave, was over.
As he came to the top of the stairs I told him the details of what I thought I saw, assuring myself the entire time I was overreacting. Being the great man that he is, he went down to check for me. He walked down the stair,s looked for what seemed like a split second and said, "Yep, you got a bat."
This is when I would like to say that we calmly took action, but that can be said with truth for only one of us.
Dave: "Do you have a pillow case?"
Me: "Only the one I sleep on."
Dave: "Do you have a sheet."
Me: "Only the one I sleep under."
Dave: "Do you have a garbage bag?"
Me: (looked...) "No... but I do have paper bags."
Dave: "Ok, that'll work."
So down he went with the paper bag, as I stood nervously at the top of the stairs. He came back up about five minutes later. Didn't find it.
I considered just buying new clothes.
Dave had a better plan. We both would go down and as I moved my clothes from the washer to the dryer, Dave would watch for the bat.
As we went down the stairs my heart was pounding and I made sure to cover my head with my hands. I was quickly moving my clothes, when Dave announced "There it is!" I fell to the ground and covered my head. I heard the bag fly through the air and land, but had no idea where.
Dave then told me to get up.
I refused.
He very calmly responded, "No, you need to get up, it landed next to your head."
I moved.
He had it under the bag, trapped on the ground. After calming me down a little, he tried to smash it with laundry detergent and then a wooden bed pole that was being stored in the basement. After hitting almost everywhere, almost certain it had been killed, he removed the bag. Out it flew.
I jumped backwards, as Dave went after it. He finally caught it and placed it in a bag, telling me to finish my laundry.
After the bat was disposed of, hopefully dead in the trash can outside, we came back in the house and instantly I feared there was a bat in every dark corner. I was jumpy and when I stepped on something I was not expecting to step on, I screamed. I was a little shaken up.
After talking about it and realizing I was being quite ridiculous, and I calmed down. However, the next morning when the AC and the microwave were running at the same time, the fuse blew and I needed to go down to the basement. It took a lot of talking myself into going down to the basement and assuring myself that the bat was gone before I could go.
How easily, we depend on our experiences and not the knowledge and truth we know. I wasn't afraid of the basement when it had been safe over and over again. I had depended on those experiences of safely to make my conclusion that the basement was safe. But after an experience of not feeling safe, even though I know that the bat could not really hurt me and more than likely I would survive, my belief of what the basement's safety changed quickly.
Too often I base my beliefs on what I have seen and lived through, what is of this world, instead of what is eternal. With God, I have promise to have no fear in things of this world because he is in control of it all, no need to worry. This is easy to believe when I don't need to put it into practice, but the second it is challenged it is a struggle.
We are promised struggles and sufferings and I know that these challenge us on what we believe and know to be true and are placed in our lives to strengthen our dependance on God, to deepen our knowledge of who he is and what that means in our lives. They are not promised to be easy or without strife, however they are promised to be constant in whatever situation, trial, or opportunity is presented in our paths.
So, whether my basement is with or without a bat, I have the freedom to not allow what is in my basement or what is happening in my life to affect me because I have the truth of my Lord to rest in always.
Axe, the cologne. 
