I wrote earlier this month about underlining lessons. I write of another one in which I am being schooled. Learning to love past the ‘oogie’ things of life. Often, I can be detoured or stopped by characteristics others seem comfortable sharing with me. A love lesson I am being challenged to learn.

An acquaintance set across from me and as I talked; as if she was invisible, she stuck her finger in her nose, rolled between her fingers what she had retrieved; then dropped her yield on the floor beside my large chair.

I lost awareness of what I was saying, though I did not stop talking. After she left, I used disinfectant spray on every surface I thought she had touched. I sprayed the surface of my chair where she had sat! Including the boogered floor.

It would take hours before I could make myself ‘Swiffer’ the area where the offending booger rested. I won’t mention all the names I called her. She may have been a friend, but I didn’t want her to take out my trash. She might give it germs! When she returned the following week, my repulsion had morphed into a need to pray for myself.

I needed to answer the value GOD places in an adult booger retriever. Honestly, I think we all do this, but not in plain sight. I felt the same way about her as I did upon seeing some guy digging for gold as he drove down the street. When did we decide that allowing a booger to hang on the fingertip until you found a tissue was a dignified position? This was now my struggle.

I brought boxes of tissue. I placed trash containers nearby. She did the same thing on the next visit! Just as I am near banning her from my domicile; as I sat talking, I reached up to the corner of my mouth and removed crust I found there. Without thinking I flick the crust to the floor. Then a neighbor came by and as he spoke, cleared the corner of his eye and dusted off the residue onto the floor. “See,” the Lord said; “all humans do ‘oogie’ things.”

We all do repulsive things that we think carry no stigma. Being human in a fallen world means we are often unlovely in our behavior. Especially if we think no one is watching.

In one swoop GOD taught me additionally about the amazement of His love for us all. Booger, mouth crust, eye goo and all. Love that will not let us go. I am thankful for agape love for the whole of me! That continues to love me beyond my faults and continues to see my need.