Central West Virginia's Guide To Life

BUT I WORK ON SUNDAYS
By Mary Zimmer

10/07 - Sins Are Like Dust Mites

I recently discovered that I have an allergy problem. The test showed that I’m allergic to dust mites and all on the same level are trees, grass, molds and dogs!

While I’m not getting rid of the grass, trees or my dog Sugar, I am trying my best to get rid of the others. The more I learn about dust mites the more disgusted I become.

According to the fact sheet the doctor gave me, dust mites are eight-legged arachnids, relative of the spider. The dust mite is microscopic and can’t be seen by the human eye. An adult female mite can lay 25 to 50 eggs every three weeks and they live for two to three months.

People like me react to waste particles produced by the dust mite. Each mite produces about 20 of these waste particles every day, and more than 100,000 of them may be present in only a gram of dust!

Dust mites thrive in dark, warm and humid places like pillows, mattresses, box springs, blankets, carpets and upholstered furniture. Here’s the really repulsive part! Literally millions of mites can inhabit a single bed as it provides both a perfect condition for growth and their greatest food source, the shed scales from human skin!

As I clean my bedroom and make the necessary changes in there and the other rooms in the house, I began to think about how dust mites are a lot like sin.

Sin doesn’t have eight legs but some times it can’t be seen by the human eye either. Sometimes it can only be seen by God’s eye. One sin has a way of multiplying into many sins and sins often live a lot longer than two or three months.

Sin thrives in dark places. Jesus said in John 3:20 “Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” (NIV)

And just as disgusting as the dust mites, many sins can inhabit dark places of one’s heart and feed off of the human scales of selfishness.

The same way I get rid of dust mites is the same way we get rid of sin. Do some house cleaning and make some changes! We need to make changes in our hearts and clean out the selfishness of our hearts and let the Light of Christ shine through.

These changes are not done once but every day. I have to change the way I put clothes and other things away. I have to clean every week, not just once in a while. And I have to clean thoroughly, not just on the surface.

Same is true in the changes and cleaning we do in our hearts. It’s changes that are made permanently and cleaning that is done deep and often.

As I work to get rid of dust mites, I will also need to work to get rid of the sin in my heart. Here’s to all of us ridding ourselves of both!