Why God Created Mosquitoes

image from here

Mosquitoes have been responsible for many of the world's greatest miseries: plagues, pestilences, disease. Millions of people have lost their lives from mosquito-related disease. Billions of dollars have been spent perfecting ways to eliminate these blood-sucking demons from swamps, marshes and neighborhoods--and billions more dollars have been spent inventing ways to prevent the spread of disease.

As a girl, I had a mosquito phobia. I would avoid going outside when I knew the bugs were out. I would wear long sleeves and pants during hot camping days. Unfortunately for me, I draw mosquitoes like outhouses draw flies.  I must be really sweet (inside, not outside), because I always get twice as many bites as anyone else in the vicinity.
As an adult, the phobia grew, and I passed it unwittingly on to my children. Citronella candles, Skin-So-Soft, repellent sprays and wipes. Bug sprays around every window and door. Benadryl sticks and anti-itch creams and gels. I even purchased ultrasonic gadgets that were supposed to drive the bugs batty and repel them non-chemically. The summer that Grandpa Tucker took me and four of my kids on a week-long horse-packing trip I brought mosquito nets for each kid to wear. (That's another story. And those nets were completely necessary, it turns out. Lily's line of 16 bites across her five-year-old forehead were justification enough.)

I have never been afraid of catching a disease. I hated mosquito bites with an intensity equal to any germophobe. Why? Because I always had a complete lack of self-control when it came to scratching. No matter how many times I would tell myself to just leave them alone, I would cover myself in welts and scabs from sheer "itch frustration."

And then, four years ago, I grew up. I tried a little experiment. Let's see how long it takes for a mosquito bite to go away if you never scratch it. Guess what? It takes two-and-a-half days for a bite to go completely away if not scratched. How long does it take for a scab to go away? Lots longer. So, my scientific experiment yielded an unexpected result: If I can have patience for about a day, then I would not add any more mosquito-related scars to my already plentiful collection.

Mosquitoes taught me patience. Is that why God created them? So that I could deal with this?

How many times in fifteen minutes can this three-year-old demand:

"I WANT ICE KEEM!"?

More times than the itsy bitsy bug bite on my shin itches, that's for sure.

Thanks for creating mosquitoes. Because if they hadn't, I may have gone to prison for a grievous crime, attributable to a serious lack of patience.


p.s. Wish you could see the computer screen. I just squished one. Ah, the irony.