Snakes and Gardens

My grandmother, Mama Bea, had a garden.  It was always Mama Bea’s garden even though my grandfather, Daddy Freeman, did as much work in it as she did.  I remember Mama Bea making Daddy Freeman get up out of his chair one day to go till the garden.  He didn’t like it one bit and when the tiller wouldn’t start, he took a hammer and started pounding on it.  Better the tiller than Mama Bea I thought because I was quite certain Mama Bea could take him.

Anyway, they had a garden that to any 8 year old looked as if the entire world’s population could be fed from it.  Its rows yielded corn, tomatoes, eggplants, okra, squash, watermelons, onions, potatoes, and most everything else that could be planted, grown and eaten, canned, or frozen.  The garden also had a huge section that was the strawberry patch.  I can still see Mama Bea stooped over in the strawberry patch, sweat dripping from her face as she would pull weeds and later as she searched for the big, red berries.  Daddy Freeman would be off in another part tilling, or hammering, whatever was appropriate for that particular day and the demeanor of the tiller. 

I wasn’t there the day that it happened.   My memories of the encounter rely on the memories and stories of my mother and others.  Mama Bea was meticulously going through the strawberry patch when she felt a sting on her hand.  Now, I don’t know if it happened this way or not, but what I picture is Mama Bea straightening up and holding her hand out at arm’s length and there being a water moccasin with fangs still imbedded in her hand.  How it happened, I don’t know but one thing was for certain, two were in the garden and only one was going to leave alive.  Mama Bea hated snakes and was a fierce opponent when her hoe was nearby.  I’m certain that snake figured out pretty quickly that it had bitten off more than it could chew. 

The next several days Mama Bea’s life hung in the balance.  She had been transported to Houston, MS for medical treatment.  There was no anti-venom but this Southern woman was strong as an ox.  She overcame the poison that had violated her body just as she had dispatched that snake.  I don’t remember if there was a strawberry patch the following year.

Snakes and gardens just don’t seem to go together, do they?  Eve discovered that, as did Adam.  We want to enjoy God’s good creation and somehow it gets mucked up on occasion by snake-like critters.  Some might call it temptation, maybe even sin.  It just gets in the way and can sting, even resulting  in the loss of life, spiritual or physical.  If we only had a champion, someone who could wield a spiritual hoe as Mama Bea had and dispatch sin and temptation before its sting.  If only there was someone who could go ahead of us, searching and destroying, as it were.  If only there was someone . . .

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  I Cor. 15