an atrocious recollection

Last Sunday at church we were talking about the nature of God when someone made reference to Jonathan Edwards' sermon "Sinners in the hands of an angry God". In contrast to our belief, that God is our loving Father in Heaven, some believe that our God is angry, with fiery indignation for sinful man. In Edwards' own words:

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes as the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.

The gal in church who brought this up made reference to the thinking (in other circles) that we are as evil spiders which the Lord holds over the fire ready to drop at any moment. I agree with Edwards' thinking in one respect: Spiders are evil.
I hate spiders. There's no way around it. I hate them.
Perhaps this began as a child when we moved to the country. They lurked at every turn in our old barn, they would spin their wide webs in the field, and horror of all horrors, made their way into the house on occasion. Being much afflicted with the loathsome creatures, I learned to keep a lookout for them.
Yet, alas, I was not to emerge unscathed by these awful vermin.
One morning I dreamed I was eating shredded wheat. Just as I swallowed a mouthful I was suddenly awakened from my sleep with the realization that I really was chewing something. I shot out of bed to the mirror. I opened my mouth, and there, to my utter horror, were long, twitching spider legs sticking out of my braces. SPIDER LEGS! IN MY MOUTH! AAAAAAUGH!
I never recovered from that harrowing experience.