The Situation Room

I am still trying to perfect my coffee skills at home. For some reason, a recipe for an iced caramel or iced vanilla latter seems impossible for me to make well! I became used to that drink as I visited my local Starbucks as I wrote curriculum and devotions over the past several months! I love the time to myself, and also love getting to know the baristas and regular guests there. It’s nice when they know my name!

I am hesitant to admit that we had a situation at home a few months ago…a lice situation. I realize lice is not equivalent to dirty, but it is still just as gross. I found one in little Raegan’s hair after church one Sunday. They had fun watching the washer spin overtime!

Even though Brett was getting ready to leave that day for a work trip, we stopped at Target, Wal-Mart, and pharmacy in the area. Apparently, lice had an outbreak at the local school. We do not even attend that elementary school! There is no telling where these scoundrels were picked up. We finally found enough treatment boxes for all five of us girls. After church, I spent a while combing each strand of hair and finding countless…I hate to call them…bugs. The laundry mounted in the laundry room!

We tore the house up. We bagged up every hair accessory, bagged the wall of hair bows, stuffed doll clothes in bags ready to wash, boiled combs, brushes, ripped sheets off the beds, vacuumed every fiber of carpet we could reach. We basically did everything short of burning the house down. Every speck of anything I saw, I thought might be a louse. I treated the boys’ hair just in case. I even found some in my hair too. I did so many loads of laundry, I was cranking out more clean than I had time to fold, so I just dumped it on the floor in Linley and Jenna’s room.

They slept in pallets on the floor and Brett and I finally ate some supper about midnight. He ended up not even sleeping since he left for the airport for an early morning flight. Whew! Serving my family alone each day, I grew to dread our nightly ritual of letting each girl sit in the tub and take process of shampooing heads and combing through each strand of hair. I was so tired and so lonely! I even shampooed and combed thorough my own hair each day. At the end of the day, the girls helped me vacuum the living room and kitchen, and as a reward for their effort, we watched Christmas movies each night. This movie below is The Nine Lives of Christmas if you like movies about cats! Mainly, I was just too tired to make them go to bed, and they were good company at the end of the day.

He came back for three days and left again for another trip, and we still had the situation. Fortunately, after going back to the tiresome task of combing each night, someone told me about a treatment place nearby. Praise the Lord, they were amazing, treated the hair, and we are still clean today. Turns out, there was no need to bag up every toy and boil (ruin) the hairbrushes and combs. After over two weeks, we were finally free!

The irony here is that Brett used to travel for Chick-fil-A grand openings as a trainer. The last trip he took three years ago, three of us threw up, and I cleaned up a horrific scene in the middle of the night, and held everyone together for two weeks until he returned the night before Thanksgiving. He has not traveled since then, but lice happened several weeks ago. He returned home and everyone was fine. He went out of town last week, and Raegan had a terrible headache and was sick on the couch and carpet - I had no choice but to grit my teeth and clean it up. Yuck. Oh, the irony here!

Sometimes it seems life just has too much irony. I cannot tell you how many times I expressed to God I was tired and needed help. Oh, I needed help. So much time was spent cleaning up and worrying, there was not much time left to make supper or do anything fun! Let me assure you the Lord is good. In the middle of all the…grossness…He still sustained everyone and we made it.

You might be struggling with something ironic in your life and it may not be super fun. In fact, it might be absolutely devastating. It might make you mad. I guarantee you that lice made me mad. At least with sick people, I can quarantine them, and move on about the day, but with lice, it was a constant watch over everyone all day everyday, and worrying about whether they were spreading. Loneliness also became of problem, especially focusing so much on a situation.

God heard me and He always hears you too. He always listens to you. Praise Him for caring about each of us in such a personal way. He was right with me while I dragged myself up the stairs for the combing process or holding my breath while I cleaned up the carpet. He helped me heat up the frozen White Castle burgers we had almost every night last week while Brett was out of town last week and I had no energy left to make supper.

God is always strong when we are not. He has the power to sustain you through everything. You might be feeling lonely in life or waiting for something. He knows and will take you through it even when it is more intense than a lonely lice situation.

Take heart and hold onto hope. You have every reason to hang on and keep going because your God is big enough to handle it for you. He always listens and always loves you. Remember this today, dear friends!

See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s little children - and we are!

1 John 3:3

In the middle of all the crazy, we did manage to stop by Starbucks for a treat and have "pup cups."