Ouch, Don't Scratch the Itch

The main idea of these paragraphs comes from what my mom usually said when I or my sister got bug-bite on our skin. She would say, “Jangan digaruk!” which literally translated to “Don’t scratch!” We often ignored what she said and kept scratching our skin until the redness from the itch turned into a scar and bled from it, and that happened more than twice, certainly said. What was wrong with scratching our bug-bitten skin? It’s the most effective way to get rid of the itchy feeling, and probably that’s the only way, wasn’t it?

Well, it took me years to realize what my mom said had much deeper truth than what it sounded like. It’s not just because she didn’t want our skin to be smudged, nor had she believed highly in essential oils. Scratching our skin is temporary, and rubbing our skin with essential oils is eternal. Confusing enough? Let’s get deeper into this.

We all need something bigger or stronger to precede our situation. In above case, we need something to overcome the itchy feeling. By scratching our skin, we fulfilled the need of something stronger, pain precedes itch. Let’s try something out here; I want you to scratch your skin, do it gently for a minute. What do you feel? Scratchy? I am pretty sure you scratch in a much lower intensity compared to how you scratch your itchy skin. Why did we feel good by scratching itchy skin? Because by scratching the itchy skin, we introduced pain into our sense, and pain is strong, way much stronger than what itches could do. We always need something bigger than what we had to have it overcome.

Everything has a scale to measure itself. Itches could be mild or severe, so is pain. Mild itches could be overcome by only mild pain; severe itches need severe pain, and so on. Once itches had been overcome by pain, what do you think will remain?

I think by now we all have understood the context. Itches are our life situation, and we have to choose which way to go for a solution. Are we going for something temporary, or something eternal? And I am sure by now we all agree to not scratching itchy skin, instead we’re going to ask Mom for essential oil. Essential oils for the win!

Yet, one rub of essential oils wouldn’t make any difference. It required commitment, to rub frequently for three days or even a week. Commitment builds good habit, and good habit will be a good foundation of better life (and it could be your long-searched solution as well).

Colossians 3:2 - “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

Set your minds on things that are eternal, not on something temporary. Temporary things seem more practical and more hands-on, compared to eternal things which seem small and ineffective at times. The Apostle Paul knows exactly what we would think of it, and on different occasion, he said:

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 – “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Another highlight he put on fixing/setting our minds to something above/eternal, now with further explanation to it. What he refers to “light and momentary troubles”, we might refer that to our situation, which might be nowhere near “light and momentary”. Do we believe that our situation could achieve us an eternal glory? He’s stressing about what foundation our life is built upon based on what we focus on.

Life is uncertain. Problems come and go. There’s a beautiful words in Japanese, “Mono no aware” which means “the bittersweet poignancy of things.” It boils down to our point of view of different things, as life changes and problems coming and resolving. It’s all about how strong our foundation and our commitment, which will achieve us eternal glory.