“Why do you think God made lice? They really don’t have any purpose at all”
“Maybe for just this”
One year ago, I never thought I would be having a conversation about why God made lice while helping a friend pick lice out of their hair in a house in Costa Rica. But that’s my reality now! It’s a lot different than home, and probably really gross compared to most peoples’ lives in the States as well. My life this past month has been full of kinda “gross” stuff, but the “gross” stuff doesn’t really bug us anymore (that’s a pun, you’ll understand soon hahaha).
I adore the ministry my team and I have been working with the past month and a half; we are working in a rough area working with our host, Bella Flor, to reach the families there and care for the children in situations most of us couldn’t even imagine growing up in.
There are a few girls there who come every day and love on us endlessly, and two(ish) weeks into hugging them, cuddling them, and giving them piggyback rides, we realized that they had lice. You see, you can’t just stop spending time with these kids when something like this happens; lice are just bugs. These kids still need love and if that means getting lice in the process, that’s okay (WWJD has been a REAL motto here for sure).
So one night during team time, all of us got around outside in the dark with our headlamps and did head checks. And a year ago I probably would’ve thought “gross!”, but it was actually such a time of building community. All 7 of us gathered around each other looking through each others’ hair and laughing and making jokes simultaneously. After realizing 3 of us (including me) had lice, we talked to the leaders, treated our heads and spent hours picking out the lice and knits, stripped our beds, and washed our clothes and sheets.
Just last night, another team realized some of the kids at their old ministry (some teams switched ministry after month 1 debrief) had lice, too. So me and some other girls helped pick the little buggers out of her hair this morning. As we were all sitting there on the porch outside, we were talking. She told us how her team started talking about why in the world God would make a bug that literally does nothing useful. Lice don’t hurt you, they don’t help you, they’re just kind of there. And, as the whole team was gathered together, someone said “Maybe for just this.”
That made me think back to laughing and gathering together with my team as they helped me get rid of my lice. You can’t get rid of them on your own; you need to be able to trust your team as they do it for you and you sit there kind of helpless without them. When I think back to the night we found out about it, I remember a fun night where our team got really close (in a kinda weird way, I guess).
Is it possible God created a bug just to bring people together and to teach us that we need people?
Maybe! It’s definitely a way I’ve seen God here that I never ever would have thought about before the race. So, Lord, thank you for those dumb little buggers even if they are pretty annoying.
