I am currently lying in my bed wrapped up in blankets like a human burrito, all shiny with Vick’s vapo-slime and armed with cough drops, Kleenex, and a line-up of fluids. I am, in fact, sick.
You see, training camp was a prime place to catch something. I came in sleep deprived from trying to get all my school work done before and just bundled with worries which I’m sure did no favors to my immune system. It was also wet and cold pretty much every day… so much for the warm, southern break from the Wisconsin weather! Training camp was also this magical place where you forgot all sanitation. We ate off not only the same platter, but sometimes even the same utensils or with our hands and were constantly crammed into various close quarters for long amounts of time. Hugs abounded and late night conversations and prayer times happened in the confines of tiny tents meant for one that we crammed 5 people in. I was totally game and reveled in the fact that I didn’t have to do things like shower to be socially appropriate (please don’t judge me) and I got this chance to live a life that was free of a lot of the boring rules of my culture.
Essentially we breathed all over each other for an extended amount of time in unusual conditions (bet you’ve never heard training camp explained in that way!). Awesome.
And that is how I caught the plague.
I came back and on top of missing nearly two weeks of my last college semester, making a valiant attempt at processing what I had learned at camp, and catching up with the ministry I am involved in, I was now miserable with a head cold and a fever. I would love to tell you that this is the part of the story where I brought it all before God and prayed and was healed, but that’s not what happened. In reality, it never crossed my mind to even ask God for help with any of it and I instead wallowed in my suffering and pitied myself beyond all belief and then just gave up on any hope of catching up on anything. I spent most of my time hacking up a lung in my bed while reading a novel on my kindle about a dragon.
I am convinced that you never truly know a person until you are forced to be around them while they are sick.
I get whiny and complain a LOT. I apparently require everyone to know every symptom I am experiencing and would like others to understand just how difficult my life really is. My roommates are the greatest and would offer me medicine, run to the store to buy me things, and even make me delicious homemade soup and respond with only love the entire time. They continue to hang out with me instead of quarantining me (they should’ve gone the quarantine route… pretty sure I passed it on to one of them!) and sympathize with all my complaints. That is what I call some impressive love!
In reality my suffering is pretty much nothing in comparison to a whole lot of other things and I have literally nothing to complain about. My response is especially disappointing to me because it isn’t in any way bringing any glory to God. Rest is not bad, but my attitude sure is.
The good thing that came out of all of this is it highlighted just how much I complain about things on a daily basis. I whine about the weather every single time I look out a window and am a drama queen about homework and classes even though I am working hard and paying thousands to even go here. I recount every ache and pain in my body to whoever will listen and whenever someone says that they are sick/sore/tired, I come up with a story that is even worse so they will see that I am to be pitied more. It’s disgusting how much this has become a part of my daily life, a part of the small-talk conversations with people that I don’t even know.
Instead of worshiping God for all the beauty in my life and giving Him credit, I cry out for attention in all the wrong ways.
It’s the American way, this ‘me, me, me’ attitude and it is deeply engrained, but nothing good is ever borne from it. I am blessed to be surrounded by people who deeply love and care for me and each of these people definitely notice when I am not doing so well. Each of them would ask me about it had they noticed something was not right and I’m positive that none would deny me the medical attention if I need it.
I’m not really trying to get a physical need fulfilled, but rather an internal thirst for recognition, affirmation, and love to be quenched.
That’s seems like a complicated, far-reaching problem and it’s one that can’t be addressed and neatly wrapped up in a blog post with “10 easy ways to make your life better” wisdom. I think a first step in the right direction is realizing that this is a problem and to make an effort to bite back those needless complaints and instead use my breath to ask how the other person is doing and to truly listen without trying to one-up them and relate everything back to me. If I am searching to fulfill these needs so often, I can’t imagine how others who have a much greater need than I- the coworker who just broke up with her boyfriend, the guy who I sit next to in class whose dad just died, or the professor smothered in depression- are coping with it all and feeling.
That’s my challenge to you: every time you are tempted to complain, bite it back and do something beautiful with your words. Ask that person how they are doing and take the time to listen, tell an encouraging story, compliment them on something more than their clothes or hair, or take time to pray for them right then and there. Maybe if we do that, what comes out of Christians’ mouths will begin to reflect the love we have in Christ instead of being selfish and hypocritical.
Guess what? I’m still sick- worse even. But now this time I am feeling a bit lighter, a bit more hopeful and wondering how God is even going to use a hacking cough to change someone’s life.
