Humility Learned on a Cement Floor

God gave me the word humility this month and oh how I was humbled…
 
All of us could use a lesson on humility but many times when we’re in the middle of a struggle we don’t realize there can really be anything learned. Looking back on the things I’ve experienced this month, I see the dramatic lessons of humility.
 
It started with dinner one night. Shannon and I were out in my tent and we didn’t hear the dinner call. We walked in a half hour too late and realized that all of our food had been eaten. People decided to have seconds and thirds, leaving us without a meal for the night.

Already living on such small amounts of food, not getting dinner was a major bummer. I walked into the kitchen to try and find anything to eat, my stomach grumbling, only to be told that there was no food. I could eat a small piece of bread but that was all they had.

With no stores around and no hidden snacks, for the first time in my life I went to bed officially hungry. 

I felt unloved, miserable and cheated. I felt like I deserved to eat dinner. I had to eat dinner, it was not fair. I couldn’t go to bed hungry.
 
As I was laying in my tent that night, mad at the people who had eaten seconds and thirds, the thought crossed my mind:

  “Why do I deserve food but all these people I’ve met around the world don’t? What makes me any better than them?”
 
I was humbled that night. Never in my life have I literally had NO food to eat. I was left to go to bed hungry and it didn’t feel like anyone really cared. What a horrible feeling that was. The compassion I gained in that moment for those who face those thoughts daily was a lesson you couldn’t teach yourself on your own.  
 
The second time I was humbled was during a weeklong, miserable sickness.

After finally getting over strep throat I said to myself,  “wow I finally feel 100%,” no more than three hours later I was throwing up outside in the dark.  A gang of dogs began to bark and lunge at me, too sick to care, I didn’t move. All I could do was sit in a heap in the grass.

Dusty yelled from behind “watch out, we saw poisoness snakes out here last night.”  I just continued to lie there thinking, “a snakebite would probably feel better than what I’m currently going through.”
 
I finally made it into a cement room for the night; a perfect sick room, close to the bathroom and with good ventilation. I got into my sleeping bag, feeling miserable, with a plastic bag sitting next to me just in case.  Only 20 minutes later I began to get sick again, not strong enough to make it to the bathroom I threw-up into the plastic bag, not realizing that there was a huge hole in the bottom. My sleeping bag and sleeping pad got covered; too sick to do anything I just laid there crying. Luckily two girls came in and helped me, putting down a trash bag and giving me a new sleeping pad and blanket.

I laid in that cement room for three days. People would walk by my miserable self, not stopping, on their way to the bathroom. I felt like the beggar in Jesus’ time, lying on a mat outside the church. Here I was in a completely vulnerable, pathetic state and I had nowhere else to go except to lie in public.
 
After finally feeling well enough I told a friend that, “things can only go up from here,” seconds after saying that I tripped on a stair and fell face first into the cement, my hand taking the force of my fall. Throbbing and bleeding, I crawled to my tent and cried, once again miserable.
 
Humility.
 
I can complain and go on and on about “oh, poor me” but in the end, I have a family and warm shower to go home to. I live in a country with the best medical care in the world. I will probably never have to go to bed hungry again. After only a brief taste of suffering, I weep for all those around the world who face these circumstances daily.

Circumstances like my friend Lynda‘s, a girl I met shortly after hurting my hand, a 14-year-old girl who would only humble me more.