Invasion of the Sanity Snatchers

Oh mercy, friends. We’ve been battling head lice at our house this past week.

Bugs. In our hair. Yuck.

I think I’ve tried every homeopathic treatment (and one not-so-homeopathic treatment) I’ve found on the internet, and though it has gotten 98% better, there is still the issue of every now-and-then finding one tiny little egg. Then you have to wonder, is it an old egg that I somehow missed, or is it a new one and we have to start over?

Not to mention to whole physiological phenomenon of feeling lice whenever you think about them, regardless of whether you have them or not. You know, like some of you are probably itching right now just reading these words. You have no reason, really, to think that you have lice, but what if you itched and it really could be them? Do you know how many times a day I’ve thought about lice over the past week? That’s a lot of phantom itching that starts to make you wonder….do I have lice, or am I going crazy?

Or is it both?

This is definitely now the number two question on my short list of things to ask Jesus when I get to heaven. Number one is still why do men have what we refer to on our boys as “chest buttons” (I mean, seriously, why do they need them?). But what’s up with head lice is now firmly planted at number two. I’d really love to know what was going through His holy head on that one. There’s gotta be a reason, right?

I can honestly say, however, that this whole experience has changed something in me. I now know that when we get that little slip of paper in the backpack from school that says “Your child has been exposed to lice in the classroom”, that it’s really an urgent prayer request for a struggling family sent out by an institution that’s not allowed to officially ask for prayer. If they have to mask it as a “warning”, then so be it. But I now know the truth: Someone out there needs some spiritual intervention before they lose their religion over piles and piles of laundry, hours of vacuuming, and days of treating and combing nearly invisible specks out of the heads of impatient, wiggly little kids who can’t go to school even though they most certainly feel well enough to wreck the house.

So please pray for us, and for the thousands of other families this week who found their wheels spinning in a different direction the moment their kid reached up and furiously scratched his innocent little head. I know that they, like us, would love to have their lives back.

Next time I get a chance to write, I have something I want to share about God’s heart that I learned last week (you know, before our sense of peace and security was invaded). But for now I’m afraid I have to run…

…I think I just felt something move in my hair.