Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a fleeting glimpse of what appeared to be a long, dark shadow nestled on the floor between the bottom of the bookcase and the wall. I didn’t think too much about it at first because I was busy cleaning our living room. But that little, persistent voice inside said, “Go back and look again.”
I grabbed a flashlight to get a better look, and, much to my surprise the light revealed I had a snake in my house! After a few “oohs” and “icks,” my next reaction was of frustration, not based on fear so much, but on a feeling of helplessness. This wasn’t my “first rodeo” when it came to unexpected wildlife crossing my path, but I had zero experience dealing with snakes. My husband was out of town, so it was up to me to take care of this.
I wondered if the snake was poisonous, and if so, did that change the way I was going to deal with it? I remembered what Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Tenderness accompanies all the might imparted by Spirit” (p. 514). I knew that no matter what, harming the snake was totally out of the question for me. With this decided, I started to calm down, but the big question of how I could get it out of the house still loomed.
