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At one point during our crazy journey overseas, I noticed a nit on my son’s hair. Suddenly being homeless and unemployed in a foreign country seemed manageable compared to stopping a lice outbreak without access to a washer or dryer.

As I combed out nits, I had plenty of time to ask God what He wanted to teach me through this experience.

Corrie Ten Boom wrote about how her sister had thanked God for the fleas when they were imprisoned in a concentration camp. At the time, Corrie thought it was ridiculous. Later they realized they could share the gospel freely and study the Bible without interruption from the guards, because the guards were afraid to get fleas.

I remembered hearing a rabbi argue that there’s no “bad”. There’s only “good” yet to be revealed. So I asked God to reveal the hidden good in lice. Here’s what I realized:

Lice can’t fly. They can barely walk. Their strength lies in their ability to remain. They hang on tenaciously, and their eggs can survive conditions that kill their parents. They thrive because they remain.

My job as a parent is to raise children who hang on. If they have the resilience to remain in Him, even if they succeed at nothing else, they will thrive and multiply.

The thought of spreading lice made my stomach turn. But I sensed God asking me, “If you get close enough to infect someone with lice, you’re also close enough to “infect” them with kingdom principles. How contagious are you?”

This gave me a new lens to view every interaction. We focused on “infecting” as many people as possible with simple truths that remain and transform their lives over time.

After treatment, the lice didn’t spread or return. But we’re still contagious, because we’re small, unimpressive, and determined to cling to Him.

How contagious are you?