Occupational Hazard
These are the words people notice when they start a new job or read the fine print when applying for a job. Most of the time these hazards don’t occur but under rare circumstances. As missionaries, many have run into many different types of occupational hazards…some are quite horrible and dangerous, but others are just small and only a temporary inconvenience.
As for me and my roommate, Deanna Richardson (now Deanna Klepel), we found out the occupational hazard of working with kids, especially slum kids in Bangkok, Thailand was head lice. We are not exactly sure of where we got head lice from, but my dear roommate found lice and eggs in her beautiful blond hair. Soon after that she found eggs in my hair. From this point on we were known as the Lice Girls (not to be confused with Spice Girls) and then in Thai we were called saowhow (aka lice girls).
Since it started we became much closer roommates, while anointing (saturating) our heads with olive oil. Then covering our heads with shower caps for 45 minutes to suffocate and kill the lice. After we wash out the oil we would slowly pick through each others heads to remove any lice or eggs attached to our hair. This had a certain blessing in our apartment. I don’t think it had ever been this clean, disinfected, or washed before. We started with the bedding, then the clothes, next our furniture and last our cars.
As the Bible says in Matthew 10:30 “But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” God knows every hair on our heads and back then I knew every hair on my roommate’s head and she knew mine. Even with all this fun and games of hide and go seek with lice, I learned an important lesson. Before this started, I had felt so small and unimportant in the city of 16 million people. But to those head lice I wasn’t small.
I was quite big.
I was their source of food.
I was their home (thankfully for a short time).
I now realize we all might feel small in our lives. Even though we are small in comparison to the world, we can still effect change in many people’s lives. The head lice affected a change in my life, mostly itching and cleaning the house. But if we let God use us for His Kingdom then we can affect people’s lives by leading them to Jesus.
I still need to remember to not be distracted by my occupational hazards in life. Instead to see them as a possibly future benefit me and others. What in your life right now seems like a hazard? How can you look at that obstacle as a benefit to your life and to others? Recently I have been studying Joseph and his journey in captivity to being a ruler over Egypt. He took what looked like a horrible occupational hazard and let God turn it into something incredible that changed a whole nation and surrounding world. Today remember this verse, Genesis 50:20, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”
Those lice might have been small, but they left a huge impact on my life (and head). Don’t forget that doing Godly small acts can leave a Godly impact that will last.
