Me, malaria. No…never…so I thought as the doctor walked in with my blood results in her hand.
Two weeks earlier I remember us in the airport. A 14 hour layover in Germany waiting for a plane to take us to Estonia. A couple of girls and I took over a coffee lounge that was closed and spread out the sheets we had taken from the flight earlier. I was feeling great. This was the world race life and I was actually starting to feel apart of it. Arriving in Estonia taking a bus to Latvia and finally settling down in the apartment our ministry contact had set out for us, it would only feel normal to be a bit overwhelmed I mean traveling for the last threeish days. Jet lag, swollen feet, it was all apart of it. Finally, I’m at a Sunday church service and the fact that it was in Russian didn’t matter to me. Just being in the presence of The Lord was good enough. It didn’t take long before I came down with a headache that ended up lasting me somewhat days. Having a nurse on Team FIERCE did help when I ended up not being able to sleep. My heart would speed up so fast I would breathe so loud but my body was as weak as spaghetti that I couldn’t even stand. (Now I only mention this not to scare anyone but to later on show the bigger picture.) It’s been a hard month on Z squad. We’ve had some really bad cases of sickness that has put our whole squad on edge and for me, I couldn’t even think being sick was an option.
After a doctors visit and a blood work appointment the next day followed by countless amounts of vomit, I’m in a freaking ambulance being rushed to my first hospital as in after I was rushed to another hospital three hours away and placed in ICU. All this, and still me being me I was in denial.
TEN DAYS, which felt like forever I spend in a hospital bed with 24/7 round fever control, pressure control machines that I ended up taking off I mean sleep was far more important to me and to top it off, there was no tiles on the celling. I know I’m all over the place here but I didn’t even have titles to freaking count. I was bored, irritated and over it. In all of this, I’m not going to lie, I was wondering where The Lord was. I mean I could of been healed next day, I was asking, praying and still I was in a four walled white boring no tv provided room. Then that’s when I snapped myself out of it. Like hello Earth to Lori, you thought Jesus would explain the reasoning for your sickness.SIKE, and it was in that moment that I just needed to trust Him.
Diagnosis: After being told I had two tropical strands of Malaria, a fever that forbid me to leave (103 to be exact) and now a low white blood cells count with an inflamed liver, I worshipped and tried to dive into the word.
THIS IS THE CRAZY PART
In one night, the devil sent one to two demons which attacked me one of my stays in the hospital. My body forcefully held down and my mouth shut where I couldn’t talk. My eyes but one was covered and I saw everything. I had Christian hip hop playing and like mentioned all I could do was blink my one eye. Why even mention this…? Did you know that God was with me that night! Even after the first time I broke free, a demon came again and I rebuked it in the name of Jesus. This moment was a realization for me that something is coming, Jesus has something big planned and even me being sick, the devil needed someway to try and get to me but of course failed.
I’m doing better now I’m out of the hospital, but in all this I encourage you to stay strong in your walk and know that Jesus plans will always be greater and serve such a purpose that we could never comprehend what He’s planning to do.
Side note: All my medical bills came out free. HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD!
