*Shudder*
I HATE cockroaches. They make my skin crawl. If I see one, I feel extreme revulsion. They are loathsome, vile creatures. I can’t even kill them by stepping on them, because I can’t bear to step on things that crunch. I am even having a hard time writing about them. I have no idea how Franz Kafka could write a novella about a man turning into a giant cockroach (which originally was a monstrous insect but was translated into cockroach in the version I read, just FYI). I had trouble reading that book, and can’t recommend it. It’s a classic, but, I mean, it’s creepy!
Then there’s a well-known song I learned in Spanish when I was young, and maybe you did, too. Of course I didn’t know how to pronounce some of the words, but I thought I did. And I had no earthly idea what it meant, but I thought it was funny that one of the words sounded like marijuana. Who knew that it really was the Spanish word for marijuana! Not me, although maybe I should have suspected it. 🙄 I knew it was about a cockroach, and the verse in English was weird, and fun to sing, and not a translation but an explanation. As I learned it, the English part went like this:
It’s a song about an insect, and it’s not so very pretty.
But when everybody sings it, it’s a lovely little ditty.
Since I was writing this inspirational piece about cockroaches, I thought I should look up the actual Spanish refrain and its verbatim translation. The original song was written way before the Mexican Revolution (1910-c1920) and has had many iterations. But it really became popular in Latin America during the Revolution. It turns out that the version I learned in the late 1950s is actually a political statement cloaked in a “lovely little ditty” about a cockroach, who represented different people in different verses, depending on which side of the Revolution you supported.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| La cucaracha, la cucaracha, | The cockroach, the cockroach, |
| ya no puede caminar | can’t walk anymore |
| porque no tiene, porque le falta | because it doesn’t have, because it’s lacking |
| marihuana que fumar. | marijuana to smoke. |
Clearly I am not the first person to be inspired by a cockroach.
My mom, sister Pat, and I found inspiration in a cockroach on a cross-country trip when I was in my early 20s. It was the artistic kind of inspiration which motivated us to write a poem. Pat recently found a copy of that poem that we wrote while teetering between horror and giggles, and I knew I wanted to write a blog post about my two most memorable cockroach encounters. At one motel in some town that has totally slipped my memory, the desk clerk had given us a hard teasing time warning us of rats, mice, and John’s snake, whoever John was. This poem was our retaliation…
We left a copy of the poem in our room. We also pay a little more for our lodgings these days. 🥴 But it is proof that inspiration can come from anywhere!
Fast-forward to 2013. It was the very last night of our two-week mission trip to Ghana, West Africa. I was part of a team led by my brother-in-law and sister (same sister—Pat). We were staying in the mission house outside of Kumasi. The power had been out for 8 of a scheduled 18 hours when we went to bed, and it was soooo hot. After I took my bath in tepid water dipped from a barrel, I padded through the house to my room off the kitchen. I shone my flashlight into the darkness and…what looked like hundreds if not thousands of cockroaches scuttled across the floor and up the walls in a frenzied few nanoseconds, then they were gone, like a bad dream. I could almost believe it was just a nightmare, it happened so fast. But no, I was still standing in the doorway trying not to scream.
I left my flashlight on in the room because I knew they would not come back out in the light. I took another small flashlight and went back across the house to my sister’s room to borrow their ”tap light,” which put out more light and would last longer than the battery in my flashlight. Pat said I could stay with them, but I said I was okay as long as I could keep the tap light on. She came back to my room with me, we prayed, and she insisted I take 1/4 of an Ambien to take the edge off. I had never taken a sleeping pill before, and it worked like a charm. I slept, believe it or not, and the cockroaches did not come back. I choose to believe that. Do not even suggest that it might not be true.
The next day we found out they had fumigated the kitchen, so that’s why suddenly I had a colony of the hideous things in my room. No matter–we were leaving that day and I had survived the night. I will say I was more than ready to come home and not spend another night with the cockroaches! But the trip had been amazing and fulfilling (sans cockroaches), and many souls came to Christ.
So how can I possibly find inspiration in the cockroach trauma? Easy! If I didn’t already want to live in the light, I for sure wanted to after that night. And I don’t want to have to worry about what might be lurking in the dark. What Paul said in Ephesians 5:13 seems awfully apropro to the situation.
“But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.”
Ephesians 5:13
Just as I felt safe in my room because—even though I knew there were creepy things lurking in the dark—I was able to stay in the light of the tap light, I know Jesus keeps me safe when I live in His light.
Jesus said, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.”
John 12:46
After my cockroach experiences, I never want to stay in the dark. I want whatever is in the darkness to be exposed. I love being in the light—physically and spiritually. But there are some people who want to stay in the dark, like the cockroaches, so no one can see what they do.
“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
John 3:19-21
Throughout the Bible, light and dark are contrasted and used metaphorically for the Christian walk and the darkness of sin. And the light comes from God through His word. The Psalmist says,
“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”
Psalm 119:105
“For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness.”
Psalm 18:28
As the light of the moon is a reflection of the sun, we are to reflect God’s light shining on us and become lights ourselves. The Bible says we will shine if we continue to walk in His light, as children of light.
“If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.”
1 John 1:7.
“For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.”
Ephesians 5:8
I’m planning on continuing to walk in the light of Jesus for the rest of my life. There are cockroaches (and other vile things) lurking in the dark, and I don’t want to have anything to do with them.
I promise I will not write another blog about cockroaches. They gross me out and they probably do you, too. But they did serve as inspiration to focus my thoughts on the light of God’s love. I’d love for you to subscribe to my newsletter, and leave a comment below if talking about cockroaches and light brings any thoughts to mind. I’m praying that you have a bright-light kind of day, free from any vestiges of la cucaracha!
