Blacklight of Love

Working in the health care field can be quite challenging. It has great rewards, grreat disappointments, great lessons. Caring for others, no matter how diligently one tires, is not an easy task! There are many facets of life involved and meeting the demands of others challenging in many ways. Among the cautions that one must take, is special car of what healthcare professionals call "infection control".

In the facility where I worked classes were available to convince us of the severity of this issue. The most simple concept was proper hand-washing. We all liked to think that this was an obvious, easily accomplished task. Yet, evidence of the need for more education kept surfacing. The nursing department purchased a divice to help us realize our inadequacies in proper technique. It consisted of a black florescent light, which, when hands had been washed with a special chemical and placed beneath this light, would reveal all themssed spots. All the germs still lufking in the crevices of the knuckles, nails, and such.

We didn't particularly like this dirll becuase to our horror, there were usually many germs proudly displaying themselves on our hands. At times, it felt like we would never get it right!

I thought about this exercise and realized it related to my life. There were ties when I rushed though life, barely taking time to worry about what might be clean and right and what might be wrong or dirty. And there were times when i tried to wash away the grime of life, attitudes, opinions, and failures. And thinking I had done a good job rising about my mistakes, I went headlong into the duties of life.

I often wondered why it seemed more poison, and difficulties seemed to arrive. I thought I was doing everything I could; all that I knew to do. It was then that I realized that God allowed the doffoculties, the dark times, because i needed to see that I, in myself, am hopeless to get "it" right. I can wash. I can change my outward behavior. i can hhold my tongue, donform my actions, but it is not enought to change my heart. It is not enought to bring me true peace inside, nor true joy and happiness.

Just like that black light revelaed germs otherwise unseen, yet posiing great danger, so the difficulties, things I did not understand, revealed the inadequacies of my self-righteousness. God, in His great mercy andlove, allowed dark times, blacklights of His love, to examine my heart and reveal my true character.

But He doesn't leave it there. He doesn't say, "Go back and wash again and get it right!" He reaches down, takes my hands, and washes me with the only thing that can truly make me clean...His own blood. the blood that Jesus allowed to spill for me. It dawned on me that the day Jesus died for sinful mankind must have seemed like a dark day in God's eyes. Even though He knew the glorious outcome, He also felt the pain adn agony His sone was feeling that moment. He knew there would be many who would reject HIm, mock Him, despise Him. Yet His love compelled Him to walk through that dark hour for us. How can I complain when He chooses to allow things I would call "dark" to shed His "light" on my life? How can I resist letting HIm wash me, challenge me, grow in me? I thanked Him daily for that blacklight at work, protecting me from germs. But i praise Him for eternity for that dark day He endured for me. And I welcome the dark light of His total Lordship in my life.