Contagious!
Some things are not contagious even if they are hereditary. Just because certain cancers, diseases, or mental health disorders run in a family, there is no guarantee that someone will get it just because they are related. While the probability is higher, it may or may not happen. And on the flip side, someone may acquire a health issue without warning or connection to any reasonable explanation (ie Jim’s GBM). It is all so complex; it is one of the results of being human and living in a fallen, broken world.
I do think it important to practice good hygiene and to make responsible health decisions, and yet neither will ever guarantee a healthy or equal outcome for everyone, any more than it will insure a positive one. It is so interesting that people think that they are owed anything, including a pain free life. It is also confounding that so many Christians think that they deserve only good things – as though God owes them happiness. The Bible is very clear that we are to expect the opposite, plenty of pain and suffering this side of eternity, but to keep playing the long game and not give up. Even worse are the christ followers who wish bad things on others, as though they understood life justly, while, at the same time, ignoring their own sins, mistakes and responsibility for the things that happen to them. Or complain about their misfortune and blame any and everyone else, even the Almighty, as though they are entitled to better!
Enough of a rant that seems to have no answers. For me – for today – I am advocating spreading some different germs. Though there are many germs to be spread and many contagions to avoid, we can spread them or we can try our best to avoid sharing them. I do not want to share negativity germs any more than I want to spread any illness. I do not want to spread anger, fear, hatred, gossip or anxiety. All of these and more are contagious and can be spread to the point of plague levels. Instead I am advocating that we inoculate from such negative diseases with the vaccine of grace!
If I am going to spread anything I want to be known for sharing the opposite germs of laughter and hope. Love and kindness. joy and courage. These things can also be spread to the point of a revolution. Let’s start an epidemic!
PS – Some people are just stupid, but it would appear that is contagious as well.