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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: FRESH START (01/05/17)

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• TITLE: Lice...Good and Fresh | Previous Challenge Entry
  By Vicki Thomas
  01/11/17
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Lice…Good and Fresh

“Please just check,” I begged my husband the day after Christmas. “I’m just telling you, something feels weird.” He thumbed quickly through my mop of long hair. “Nah. You’re good.” …Famous last words from the person who had to crawl into bed with me that night - Lice are good.

Now let me start by saying, lice do not necessarily frighten me – especially when they live on other people’s heads. Our family has lived with and ministered to many children throughout our lifetime. But when I realized I had gotten lice for the first time, my first thought was - There are eleven people living, working, and sleeping in this house over Christmas break - This cannot be good.

“We are going to need to start fresh – everyone grab a bottle of shampoo and line up so I can check your heads!” …Famous last words from the person who had decided to make this the year that she would strive to emulate the Proverbs 31 woman…

After 26 years of marriage, six kids, and living resourcefully on an Indian reservation for the past six years doing ministry, surely I had some kind of experience by this point that should have prepared me for this task. …I could not have been more wrong. All it took was a fresh army of lice and the twelve days following Christmas fighting them, to show me that I was in no way whatsoever prepared to tackle being that kind of wife. If I had only had more time in the new year to prepare to become the Proverbs 31 woman, I could have “laughed at the days to come” (Proverbs 31:25 NIV). I just cried instead.

Good and fresh held no guarantee to be free of pain and suffering. They were designed to be intertwined with it. One must exist in order to fully comprehend the other. Job was kind enough to share this truth with his upset wife. “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?” (Job 2:10 NIV). Where was MY husband when I needed him to talk some sense into my thinking? …Poking through my hair, wearing a four-dollar pair of Wal-Mart reading glasses over his contacts, while I attempted to show him what to look for... Forty-eight is not a good age to fight a virtually invisible army on top of my head when we can’t even see the menu at Cracker Barrel. “Her husband has full confidence in her…” (Proverbs 31:11 NIV). Probably not...

Thankfully, God always has the Famous Last Word. “…Jesus…for the joy set before him endured the cross and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2 NIV) The cross could no more be separated from joy and victory than lice could be parted from good and fresh. This is what gives me strength to pick up my fine-toothed comb and march back into battle to become the Proverbs 31 wife. Verse 18 though, seemed like a better place for this amateur to begin. “…and her lamp does not go out at night.” It’s 3:09 in the morning. My light is still on. I feel like it’s a good, fresh start.

Barker, Kenneth L. Zondervan NIV Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984. Print.

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