Pink Eye

Happy New Year, everyone!

After a sick-filled closure to 2022, our house is welcoming this new month!

Like a lot of other families with kiddos, we have been hit with sickness after sickness these past few months. It’s felt like we’d just be getting over one thing, and then one of the kids would come down with something else!

After a long stretch, Ace had finally had his first full day of being clear of any flu symptoms and I felt like we could finally take a breath. Then, I looked down at JJ tugging on my leg and saw the dreaded puffy eye looking back at me with a little goo sitting in the corner.

NOOOO! Not pink eye!

But yes, pink eye was in the house and on the prowl. A few mornings later after cleaning out the crusties from JJ’s glued-shut eye, Ace sat up in bed with the same issues.

My focus became caring for the boys, and immaculate infection control so Matt and I didn’t get it. In my mind, the worst case scenario would be if I got sick and couldn’t take care of the boys as vigorously and energetically as I can healthy.

Well, of course, the inevitable happened when you have a one-year-old who’s just learned how to point to everyone’s eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. He poked me straight in the eye- direct hit.

Pink eye: 1 , Christi: 0.

But, surprisingly, what I thought was disastrously impeding my ability to best care for my sick boys, actually (helped me in an unexpected way) gave me the greatest insight into caring for them that I could have.

Don’t get me wrong, taking care of the boys was harder now and much more exhausting.

But, it also gave me insight I was lacking.

Before I got sick, I was taking care of symptoms I saw, and using mother’s intuition to try to guess the discomforts they were in and act on those.

But, now that I had earned a seat on the pink eye train right next to them, I knew for myself what they were feeling like.

Specifically, Ace had looked completely miserable and unable to open his eye all the way. We had the dreaded 4-times-a-day drops and, what felt like hourly, baths to soften and free his little eye from hard crusties.

But, the discomfort in his face was still enough to break anyone’s heart.

My second morning with pink eye, I had cleaned my eye and it was still really uncomfortable to keep open. So, I put some lotion around my eye thinking maybe my skin is so dried out it hurt.

And within minutes I felt so much better!

So I rubbed some lotion on Ace’s face while he laid on the couch, not super thrilled mom was touching him. And a few minutes later he was back to running his football routes in our living room! (Which is not the smoothest activity with swollen eyes, but I was so glad to see he was feeling better!)

As I watched Ace run around in circles, God reminded my heart of the insight Jesus has into our hard days.

Hebrews 4 speaks on this truth:

“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16 (ESV)

Christ isn’t just aware of our pains as we face what comes on our path of life. He knows, because he’s walked on similar paths on this earth as we do.

Jesus knows what it’s like to be in our situation. What joy to know that the One who holds us not only sympathizes, He feels, He knows, He lived it Himself.

I have found the greatest encouragement lately on days when I’m really struggling in asking Christ to remind me how He’s walked through a similar situation and how He knows what I’m going through.

I found myself reaping the beauty of this a few months ago.

Before Ace came along, we miscarried a baby.

All of the emotions of losing a child you never got to know or hold is unlike any you can describe unless you’ve experienced it.

Whenever the expected due date for that baby comes around on the calendar, it’s usually a reminder of that time. At the time, we were pretty young and I hadn’t really heard much of this happening from anyone else in my life. And so, amidst the pain, and anger, and disappointment of loss- I felt alone.

And if there’s one thing Satan would love for us to feel, it’s loneliness. Because it is a destructive lie from the inside out.

We have a Savior who never leaves, and always understands.

I had asked Christ to prove that truth to me in a time I couldn’t see evidence in my own life.

And He did.

He brought me to John 11, where He Himself loses someone dear to Him.

Jesus didn’t have to go through loss. He proved that in the end of this story of Lazarus where He resurrected and healed him.

Yet, He did allow Himself to walk through very painful, very real loss, as we see starting in verse 32:

“Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?'” John 11:32-37 (ESV)

I doubt many of us would ever choose to walk through and feel the pain we feel.

But, Jesus did.

He was showing me that He knew the agony of loss. A different situation, yet still very much loss of someone He deeply cared for. And because He chose to walk through this pain, He can now sympathize with me, and walk with me.

There is indescribable comfort in being in the presence of Someone who completely understands you and knows what You’re feeling as you walk through a painful time.

Are you struggling on your path right now? Would you take time to allow Jesus to show you personally this beauty that He walks alongside you in understanding and sympathy?

From one of His children to another,

Christi