Even though some people cringe at the thought of a spider, this eight-legged creature is one of the most interesting in the world. All spiders produce silk, but not all of them spin webs. One of the unique characteristics of spiders is the way webless spider mothers care for their young. Tiny white eggs are encased in a wrapping of silk and carried around by the mother. The whole bundle is attached to the mother's abdomen, as she goes about her daily business, the eggs are dragged along behind her. In order that the bundle will not be too heavy, some of the hunting spiders lay only a few eggs at a time. Others hang the wrapped eggs on a twig while they hunt. Some spider mothers eat very little or nothing at all during the two weeks or so that the eggs are incubating.

A mother spider will fight fiercely to defend her egg cases or babies. But she will not fight unless she has possession of the young or the eggs. She needs a reason to fight, and her babies are more than enough. But if you take away her bundle she may go limp, as if dazed. Give it back to her, and she will rear up on her two pair of back legs while throwing tiny punches will the front two pair. If something else is substituted in the bundle for her eggs, such as a piece of popcorn or a wad of paper, she will continue to fight as though her eggs were in her possession. It doesn't seem to matter what the bundle contains so long as she has it. Of course, the reason is that the mother spider is always going to have spider eggs in her bundle (naturalists aren't going to meddle very often), so she doesn't need to recognize anything else.

We have seen that a mother spider, deprived of her children, stops fighting for them and, no doubt, soon forgets about them. So, as our text says, a human mother may forget her baby. But God never forgets us. No matter how far we may be removed from Him spiritually, He will always try to bring us back as long as there is any possibility.