The tale of the squatty and the chicken
Once upon a time there was a girl with an upset stomach.
Maybe it was me, maybe it wasn’t… That’s a secret I’ll never tell (you know you love me, xoxo gossip girl) Sorry… I had to…
Back to the story:
Once upon a time there was a girl with an upset stomach… Okay it was me.
Yesterday… I got sick for my very first time on the race. I’m just doing my thing when all of sudden it hit me. You know what “it” means. It’s that moment where your stomach begins to rumble, you start sweating like a chubby person at the gym, and if you don’t make it to the bathroom in 3.2 seconds… Well… You know.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the water was broken and so our only option for just that day was to use the squatty potty. I had been perfectly fine for the last week, but noooooo… The day I feel sick is the day I have to use the squatty for my first time.
If you don’t know what a squatty is, it’s basically a little hut with a hole in the ground that you go pee pee or shoo shoo in. Now here is something else you need to know about me… I tried peeing in the woods my junior year of high school and ending up peeing straight into my pants. I was not meant for wilderness, and I sure as heck was not meant to squat and shoo shoo into a hole in the ground.
So back to my story…
My tummy begins to rumble, and I know it’s time I make the decision. Before I could even try to just let the moment pass… I knew it was time.
Time to squat.
I couldn’t think of anything else. I started getting so sick, and didn’t even care that a snake could jump through the hole and bite my bum. It was time and nothing was stopping me.
This.
Is.
It.
Ladies and gentleman the moment we have all been waiting for.
I’m sitting here debating if I want to tell the rest of this story, because many of you will be grossed out and 95% of you won’t be able to look at me the same.
Oh well.
Here we go.
Awful. It was awful. Like “no way I even made it into the hole” awful. I would squat for 10 seconds and then have to stand up to prevent myself from falling face first out of the squatty, or accidentally letting my foot fall in (which in that case I would have needed counseling.)
So here I am building my quad muscles when all of a sudden I looked up to find something staring at me right in the eyes.
A chicken.
A FRICKIN chicken.
Have YOU tried going shoo shoo with a FRICKIN chicken staring at you?
At home I sit on my nice pretty potty and read a seventeen magazine, but noooooooo…. My favorite food in the world that I like with a side of ranch was watching me do my business!
So I did what anyone would do…
I cried.
I’m talking snot nose, loud wails, everyone in Africa can hear me type of cry.
There I was squatting, crying like a baby… With. A. Chicken.
I wanted to go home, and I sure as heck wanted to punch that chicken.
This is what I believe my “lows” are going to look like on the race. It’s those “can’t get any worse moments” that you look back on and laugh at. You can’t escape these moments and wherever you are all around the world there will be bad days.
There will be days where if one more thing goes wrong you will explode. The days where you spill your coffee, rip your jeans, and forget to pay your bills. There will be days where you have to laugh to keep yourself from crying, because you just can’t believe what’s happening to you.
The hard times and the uncomfortable WILL come… Sometimes in the form of burnt dinner and sometimes in the form of a chicken.
There will be moments where you are humbled beyond your imagination, and even more humbled if you blog about shoo shooing everywhere and and then posting it on Facebook.
It’s important to embrace the good as well as the bad. To rejoice in the good times and to find a way to laugh during the bad ones.
The Lord is teaching me a lot about being uncomfortable. I believe with all my heart He has called me here, and since that is true there are going to be some things I have to do that will make be uncomfortable… Maybe even break me. When God calls us to do something we can’t just take the joyful moments without expecting there to be some trials. We need to expect some situations that test our hearts and if we are serious about being all in to where He has called us.
Sure it is weird for me to turn a squatty potty story into a spiritual application, but it has taught me that this is just the beginning of the situations ahead of me. I can’t control what happens to me, but I can control my attitude towards it.
After my awful experience I laughed and cried with my teammates… Washed myself off… And then cuddled with some precious children who needed love and affection.
I will have sleepless nights, I will probably end up getting malaria, and I will be put in situations that may scare me… But that’s what I signed up for. I counted up the cost to following Jesus to these different countries, and I decided that it was worth it. Taking a shower with cockroaches, brushing my teeth from my Nalgene, and turning my clothes inside out was what I agreed to do if that meant reaching people around the world with the love of Jesus.
When I said “yes” to Jesus I said yes to all of Him… Not just the pretty parts of following Him, But the parts that could be kinda poppy too (literally)
When I said “yes” to Jesus I said yes to the cuddling of babies, but I also said yes to the dirty feet, cloth diaper mess, and snot all over my shirt.
I said yes to holding an orphan covered in his own mess, because I wondered when was the last time he was embraced or felt loved.
Jesus saw us in our mess and loved us still. It’s raw and it’s sometimes gross, But it’s real and beautiful too.
