What I learned from the stomach bug or food poisining (whatever)...




So I guess there is something to be learned in everything....My kids say I make everything into a spiritual discussion so here I am proving their point.  Even poop and vomit can be spiritualized.  

It started around one in the morning on a Friday night.  Excruciating pain in my stomach and in my back.  I could feel something moving through me that for sure was not meant to be there....in my mind I could see the tiny little bugs twirling around in my intestines, an unwanted army of guest. Okay maybe that was because I was in and out of dreamland.  By four in the morning it was game on, if you know what I mean.  By one pm Saturday I pulled myself out of bed and binge watched television in between runs to the bathroom(no play on words intended).  By Saturday night my body was stiff and sore from sitting around so much. By Sunday morning most symptoms were gone but I was left weak and with a somewhat flatter stomach.  Which to my chagrin I was pleased with, maybe there is an upside to this misery.  

So here is what I learned as I stared at the ceiling wishing for all things to stop:

1.  What goes in must come out, sometimes faster and more violently than you can imagine.  Isn't that true spiritually.  What we feed ourselves spiritually will come out.  Feed yourself the goodness of God and it will come out, feed yourself the vileness of this world and it too will come out.  I think you get the picture...eat the good stuff people.  

2.  There are some things that just don't belong in us.  It is not always going to be easy to get those things out of our lives.  Sometimes it is with great pain that relationships are ended, sin is exposed or unhealthy patterns are broken.  Just like that stinky little bug didn't belong in me there are other things that don't belong in me.  Around six weeks ago it became apparent to me that I had become dependent on sleep-aids(who could blame me).  Not hard to imagine how that happens, you can't sleep once you think no problem and pop a pill.  Then before you know it, you can't get to sleep without them.  The cycle of addiction is the same for almost everyone.  Those pills didn't belong in me, but breaking that habit was brutal.  I don't want to lay in bed thinking, I think way too much already.  However, I did it.  I did it and each night it became easier and easier.  I'm not cured, I still would like to take a pill that makes life easier. Not that I am knocking it if someone needs medication to balance themselves out under a doctors supervision(I take bio identical hormones and believe me you should be glad).  I am just saying that for me living life with no physical-sleep aids makes me depend on Christ even more.  There is no substitute for the power of Christ, there are shortcuts that never really get you anywhere.  You just simply go in circles.....but it is only the power of Christ that can give you peace when you can't sleep, get you out of a bad relationship, demolish selfish prideful thinking, break a terrible pattern or set you free from stinking thinking. Because none of those things belong in us, to us or with us.

3.  At four in the morning, I was begging God to make it stop.  Being sick hasn't been the only time I have prayed that.  It didn't stop, but what I did know was that it would.  I knew that in twelve to twenty four hours it would be over.  There would be an end to the suffering.  This is true in everything, there will be an end to the suffering.  I will get through this valley, sorrow will be replaced with rejoicing.  Think it not strange that in this world you shall have tribulation.....Yay, that is just awesome(she said with total sarcasm).  Then there is this part...but take heart I have overcome the world.  There is an overcoming, coming!  There is an end in sight, joy comes in the morning. Sometimes the morning feels like an eternity(here's to hoping I don't have to wait for eternity) but if I will steward the suffering well, He will turn my misery into a message that will build the Kingdom and rob from hell!  Big aaahh-haaaaa moment.

4.  On the tail end of this stomach thing...I started thinking about my weight.  Some of you that know my history might think this a bad thing, or you may just think I am vain (good news, I don't care what you think, for the most part).  Anyways...in the rabbit whole of my thinking I started thinking about my weight and maybe I was losing tons and tons of weight and wouldn't that be great.  Then that made me think about how that was my "normal".  Maybe life is returning to a more normal, normal.  Then that made me think about how I don't want to return to my old normal, not that I really could.  Just that after all that has happened some normal is nice but too much normal would be sickening.  I can't go back, things will never be the same.  That's just fine.  I am a different person and while I still may worry about my weight it won't ever control my joy or my destiny because my life has been shaped by disaster.  What once seemed important now seems trivial and I don't want to lose that perspective.  Love is what matters, it is what last.  My weight is just a number, but I would like it to stay in the normal range.  I guess I am not totally cured yet, hey even Paul had a problem for life. No body's perfect.

5.  Recovery is sometimes slow.  Twelve hours came and went and I was still sick.  I am a busybody.  Sitting still is hard, watching television makes me stiff and sore.  Laying in bed makes me sad and blue.  Staying busy keeps me at peace.  I set goals in my mind for recovery from this stomach bug and from grief and neither worked out.  Recovery goes at it's own speed, no time limits.  I have no control over how quickly I recover, I can't white knuckle it and make my body quit having issues anymore than I can make myself quit feeling sad.  I can manage the symptoms by eating the soft, gentle foods you are supposed to eat after being sick and not drinking coffee on an empty stomach(learned that the hard way) but I can't force the recovery.  I have to be along for the ride, be gentle, not rush it.  Recovery is an interesting word.  To recover what was lost.  Whether a stomach bug, food poisoning or a life altering loss, recovery takes time and it's a process.  Be gentle to yourself and be gentle to others who are recovering.

So that's it friends.  That's what I learned, maybe seems silly but I just like to redeem the times with some good thinking instead of stinking thinking.  Oh yeah and by the way....this is how I think...in numbered points.  I know I am so weird, but aren't we all a bit weird and peculiar?  The misfits and the broken, sojourning through this world where we don't belong.  

Keep the heavenly perspective friends, we are just passing through.  Let's take as many along with us as possible to heaven.  Make each day count.  






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