Yes, you saw that right—I sat down on the toilet and started to cry. Now this wasn’t tears of sadness, but rather tears of joy.
For many people, seeing their own urine run clear does not elicit any emotion—it’s pretty natural and healthy. However, for me, that is not my normal; especially since leaving for the world race. You see, my medical history is pretty substantial and a large portion of it is related to my bladder—to the point where I have been to several urologists and my current orders me to get yearly ultrasounds on my kidneys to ensure that they are still functioning because I am a high risk for kidney failure if I am not careful.
With that being said, due to my body, and the fact that water is not necessarily free here on the race (not that we don’t get water), I am very prone to becoming dehydrated, which means that the little bit of urine I do have in my bladder has the potential to just sit there for hours, increasing my risk of developing a bladder infection. So one of the prayer requests I had for everyone back home was against dehydration, and that finally happened!
You see, we had a movie night at the center and played Facing The Giants for some of the community that came and I had to get up to use the bathroom four times, three of which was during a 45 minute span. Now, to most people that sounds like a terrible inconvenience, and to an extent it was but I was so thankful that it happened, because that was the first time that my urine ran clear—aka, it meant that my ‘system’ was running correctly and nothing was wrong with my bladder or kidneys.
So, now you may be wondering why I felt like sharing this with ya’ll, but I wanted to explain what this showed me—it showed me that sometimes the most insignificant of things God can use to remind us that He is still taking care of us. Because, actually, that was probably the most dehydrated I had physically felt all week, but that was the first time that I was able to urinate like a normal, fully-functioning human being.
I started crying because there have been many times in my life, which I’m sure I’ll share about later, that I haven’t felt God’s presence. Now, I’m not saying He wasn’t there for me through everything, but just that I hadn’t felt Him, and if I’m being very real with you now, I have been having a real struggle feeling Him in the day-to-day while here on the race, but that night I felt He was there and actually listening to the prayers for, as well as by, me. And so I lost it—I started crying—while sitting on the toilet, because who would have thought God would meet me exactly where I was… on a toilet.
