Quarantined by Jewels From The Word

Our family was quarantined with scarlet fever when I was about 10. Someone from the health department posted a notice on our front door saying no one was to enter or exit the house for two weeks. The corner grocery store left sacks of groceries on our porch.  The school teachers came by to check on us and talked to Mama through the door.

Mama babysat a 2-year-old neighbor girl, so she was quarantined with us. I remember her mama talking to her through the window, but I don’t remember Diana being particularly upset. She called my mama “Mama Hightower” and spent almost as much time at our house as she did at her own.

After a couple of days, when we started feeling a little better, our experience was more like playing hooky from school. We did same thing we usually did—playing school and Sunday school. I was the teacher as we studied reading, writing, and arithmetic. We memorized Bible verses and read Bible stories. It was fun for us kids but I can’t imagine what our poor mother went through, with four sick kids, and only herself to take care of them.

Lepers were quarantined in Bible days. They were required by Levitical law to call out as they walked, “Unclean, Unclean!” so that people would know they were about to come in contact with a person with a highly contagious disease.

Luke tells the story of Jesus and the ten lepers in Luke 17:12-14 kjv. “And as he [Jesus] entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.”

It was unheard of for a quarantined leper to show up in the temple, to get near a priest, but if Jesus told them to, they believed they must obey, and as they did, they were healed.

As you believe and obey, your healing will come.

Lavon Hightower Lewis