After surviving 2 months in Africa without getting sick, I got food poisoning within the first 3 days of being in Nepal….
This was quite unfortunate for a few reasons:
1) I hate being sick. I have a motto of “I refuse to let my physical body stop me from doing anything!”
2) We are at debrief which is a time to rest, be refilled, reconnect with squadmates and dive in intimately with the Lord without distractions.
3) I am leaving to hike to Everest base camp in 3 days
From 9:30pm to 5:30am I laid in agony, feeling as if I had a demon inside my stomach and getting up every 20-30 minutes to throw up and have diarrhea
Maybe TMI but FOOD POISONING IS REAL YALL!
While on what I thought was my death bed, several different squad mates prayed over me and both of my roommates stayed up with me all night, just to make sure I was okay
In the midst of this I remember thinking “God I still trust you. No circumstance changes your goodness, but I genuinely don’t understand why you aren’t healing me.”
And I never got an answer in the 8 hours of misery
Then at 5:30am I asked my rooomates to go get our squad mate/leader, Rachael, because I thought I needed to go to the hospital
As she walked into the room she carried a peace that didn’t make sense to me
DO YOU NOT SEE I AM ON MY DEATH BED?!?!
She calmly asked what was going on, then proceeded to explain to me that she’s had food poisoning before and my symptoms seemed to align
She confirmed my thoughts of thinking I was on my death bed and how I wanted to say “Jesus take me now!” while trying to sleep on the cold bathroom floor
But she also confirmed that I would be okay and it would all pass with time
Given she’s not a doctor of any sort, she still allowed me to make a decision for myself on if I wanted to go to the hospital
After deciding to power through the rest of the night, she laid hands on me, prayed for me then told me she would be back in a couple of hours to check on me
And at 5:45am I threw up for the last time and was finally able to sleep
It’s taken a few days to recover fully but the Lord has been so kind in revealing to me His goodness in the midst of the pain
First
Because I have this motto of not letting my physical body stop me from doing anything, I have not been able to have sympathy for others in the midst of them struggling. I’ve actually been really prideful…
Because Rachael had already been through food poisoning before she was able to sympathize with me and share her experiences to encourage me that the feelings I felt were real but I wasn’t actually on my death bed like I thought
Now I get the opportunity to do that for someone else
I do not wish food poisoning upon anyone, but if it happens I want to be the one fighting and encouraging them the same way Rachael did for me!
Testimonies are powerful and I don’t know what I would have done without Rachael sharing hers
Second
I really love being there for others, encouraging and fighting for them, but it‘s actually not suppose to be one-sided
I felt like a HUGE burden and inconvenience by being sick and having people stay up to take care of me
But I have been praying for community for a VERY long time and God gave me a beautiful glimpse of what Godly community looks like but it took me being broken
I would never have known that they would stay up all night just to make sure I was okay or be willing to wake up at 5:30am to have a false alarm hospital trip
And the most beautiful thing about it was that they actually desired to
They loved me so much that they wanted to fight for me and pray for me and do whatever it takes to make sure I was okay
So I got food poisoning.
It was traumatic but I didn’t die
It was hard and painful but it didn’t last forever
I got food poisoning and through it, God showed me His heart
His heart for me and how to have His heart for others
P.S. WE LEAVE TOMORROW TO START OUR TREK TO EVEREST BASE CAMP!!!!
What is life?
