Conjunctivitis

… Better known as Pink eye.

I had my first bout of ‘illness’ on the World Race.

And I learned some more about myself and God.

Hindsight is always 20/20 so most of what I learned was BECAUSE I got pink eye and in that respect it was 100% a blessing.

It all started a few days before my symptoms began, when our hosts’ grandson, Jonathan, started taking eye drops for pink eye. Being in a team of nurses and from prior experience we all knew just how contagious pink eye is. 

Now let me preface this by saying that Jonathan has been pretty much my bestie this month. We hang out most days, talk about everything from school to music and just life, he teaches me things in Spanish and I help him with English, we play card games
and watch funny youtube videos together, basically, we interact a lot. When we found out that he was sick all I could do was notice all the things that he touched. 

 

I realized that I was treating him differently because he was sick.  I wasn’t being outwardly rude or alienating him but I also wasn’t being the friend that I normal am to him. My heart was not in the right place. I wasn’t showing him Christ’s unconditional
love in that moment. And that’s what God cares about. 

I knew once I noticed that my heart was struggling to love him that I was going to get it. I just had a feeling. There were too many lessons the Lord almost HAD To allow me to get it. 

The next morning my eye felt weird but it wasn’t too distracting to keep me home from ministry. But by the time we got home I had a slightly swollen eye with yellow gunk in the corner of it. Sure sign that I definitely had pink eye. It only progressed
throughout the day while I waited for eye drops. 

I struggled that day. I was frustrated. I continued to dwell on how I wouldn’t have gotten it if things were cleaner or if other sick people had been quarantined. The Lord worked on my heart all day and eventually I began to see the story of the leper
through a couple of different lenses. (Matthew 8)

First, me as the person avoiding the Leper. I avoided Jonathan. Even though we were still interacting I was treating him as though my love for him as a brother in Christ was conditional on his health. Yikes. Thank goodness the Lord’s love isn’t conditional
on me getting rid of my gunk!

Second, me as the Leper. Disclaimer- my team was awesome through this, NONE of these feelings were from things my team did, it was definitely from my hurt pride more than anything else. I was prayed over continually and Jess insisted on laying hands on
me and my eye. At the same time, I was struggling with outcasting myself. I made the choice not to touch really anything for 2 days. I used a handkerchief to open doors and move things. I just REALLY didn’t want anyone else on the team to get it from me. I
humbled myself for meals and allowed my team to serve me. It was painful. I felt useless, like an inconvenience, like a burden. I got a small taste of how the actual ‘lepers’ of the world feel. Especially when they’re actively alienated from society. 

Jesus loved those people. They ARE people too. I want to fiercely love those people like Jesus did, with boldness not fear.

God also got to show me His provision AGAIN. I was told by one of the daughters that there has been a large outbreak in Honduras and that the eye drops I needed to begin to heal may be hard to acquire. My team dropped everything and prayed for provision.
That the drops would be found so that my pain could be relieved. The Lord was faithful and later that evening another daughter valiantly brought home drops. 

On Friday, I felt like I wasn’t supposed to go to ministry and get the kids sick but I wanted to go hang out with them. I also knew, however, that I needed rest and that if I went it would be WAY harder to be there and not give any hugs or high fives without
being able to explain to the kids why. Eventually the decision was taken out of my hands and I stayed home which was really hard but I was able to have some much needed rest time. God’s just really good at giving us what we need. Not necessarily what we WANT
or how we want it but He’s really good at making sure we get what we need even if we won’t give it to ourselves. 

I’m finishing up my week or so of drops and my eye is almost back to normal. Praiseee!

I’m thankful that the Lord let me learn these lessons now so I can continue to put them into practice and love the people He’s called me to love, even when society is telling me to protect myself from them. God’s the ultimate protector and healer and my
banking on that!!

Dad, Sorry I kept the pink eye from you… But I’m fine (: