As a little girl growing up in the Ozark mountains, I can remember my Granny Burrus saying from time to time, “I smell a snake, now you kids be careful.”

Even Daddy would say at times, “Girls, I smell a snake now, ya’ll be careful.”  And strangely enough, a few times we actually saw the aforementioned snake.  Or, one of Daddy’s hound dogs might sniff a little too close and come back with a swollen jaw where that danged old snake had bit him good.

So, here the other day when my little brother, who isn’t so little anymore. . . said to me as he was standing in my front yard, “Sis, I smell a snake, be careful there.”  I took him serious.  I had not actually smelled that snake yet, but I took his word for it.  Sniffing the air, I felt that old sense of awareness come over me, as I too smelled the snake in question.

Treading a little more carefully for the next day or two, I watched just in case.
You see, this gift has somehow passed from parent to child in our family for generations.  I sometimes wonder if my own children know what it is to smell a snake. . .  perhaps they do but just don’t recognize the importance behind that strange smell.  It seems that to our family at least, snakes give off a strange odor when they feel you are getting too close to their territory.  If you know what the smell is, you can sometimes avoid trouble before it comes meeting you head on.

As life has taken me down roads that twist and turn from time to time, there have been a few times that I have “smelled a snake” – this would be a snake of a different kind. . .

Occasionally you see, we run into people who are just plain mean, I would call them ‘mean as a snake.’  There is no getting around it, no sugar coating it, and no excusing it.  Mean people are possibly individuals who have been deeply wounded as children, have had a lover leave them unexpectedly, have had their dreams of growing rich crushed, or maybe it is simply a genetic thing.  Regardless, there are a few people in this world who for whatever reason are bitter, angry, and hurtful and downright mean.  Some people might call them toxic.

Nevertheless, it took me a few years of being in ministry to come to realize that only God can change a person with a mean streak.  And even then I sometimes wonder if that is possible.  I do remember one particularly mean person that I had to deal with once though.

He was a patient at a medical clinic that I worked at for about six years as a Medical Assistant.  Every week for over a year, he came in for his allergy shots.  Sometimes the nurse was there and could give them to this man, but other times it fell my lot to be the one to administer the shot.  It was pretty simple really; a tiny little needle that was inserted just under the skin on his upper arm and the medicine injected, , , certainly not brain surgery.

However, every time without fail, he would have an absolute fit and curse at me or the nurse and tell us what horrible people we were to hurt him like we did.  Now understand please, he was not joking . . . ever.

So one day, the doctor decided that he had just had enough of this fella yelling at his staff, so he decided that he would simply give the guy his allergy shot himself.  Going into the room with his normal cheerful, happy go lucky attitude, he greeted the man.  Taking the syringe and tapping it slightly to remove even the slightest air bubble, the doctor proceeded to swab the upper arm with alcohol and gently inserted the needle.  As soon as that needle touched his skin, before it was even in the arm, the man began to curse and rant and rave.  He threw an even bigger fit than when the nurse or I gave his shot.

Yelling at the doctor, he asked, “How on earth do you people learn to give a shot in a way that hurts like the devil?  Have you had no training at all?”

Well, my doctor was a veteran physician of some thirty years at the time.  Glancing at me, he requested that I get him a full box of fresh syringes along with a vial of the man’s allergy medicine.  Standing tall, he accepted the tray of items from my hands.  Turning to the individual who was so cantankerous, he gathered up all the items and placed him in the man’s hands.

Now,” he said firmly, “from this day forward, you can give yourself your own allergy shots.  You have watched my staff and myself do it for over a year now, and you have proceeded to tell all of us in no uncertain terms just how inept we all are.  So, let’s see how good of a job you can do with this task.”

Dusting his hands together as if washing some kind of invisible dirt from them, the doctor calmly walked to the door and held it open as he motioned for the fella to exit ahead of him.  The man in question sat in a state of dumb shock for a long moment before rising and walking quietly out the door, his hand full of syringes and medicine.

I only had to treat this gentleman one other time that I remember, that was when he came in with a broken arm and needed an x-ray.  As I positioned his arm and took as great a care as I possibly could to not hurt him further, rather than curses, I heard him say in almost a whisper, “Thank you for doing such a good job.  You are one of the best around here.”

Sometimes “mean” people simply need to be shown the door, or perhaps to be shown who is really the boss.

In our life as a believer, we will more than likely run into a mean person from time to time . . . sometimes we can smell them a good ways off, just like that ornery old snake, and at others they sneak up on us and take us by surprise.  Nevertheless, if we will simply step aside and let our heavenly father show them who is the boss. . . perhaps someday they might just change.