Too often I don’t blog because the stories and experiences that touch me the most aren’t exactly easy to read. But the bottom line is, if I‘m not honest about these experiences, writing about easy, happy-go-lucky experiences feels wrong. It feels cheap. It’s not fair to you, or to me, to finish this race without acknowledging where growth has taken place inside of me and around me.
So I had the idea of a series of blogs called, “Stories Less Told.” The goal is they will be places where I can unload the truth. If I go through with this idea and write more transparently and more often, then click “Stories Less Told,” blogs with more caution.
For example, this blog is going to be transparent in a sense that it’s going to be a little gross. It’s about my experience being sick a week or so ago. So read, or don’t read, with that disclaimer in mind.
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I woke up knowing I was going to throw up, but with no clue where the throw up bucket was, I stayed put.
If you really knew me, you’d know I loath throwing up. I mean, no one particularly likes it. But I wholeheartedly dread it. Like, nightmares-and-nausea-at-the-thought-of-it, type of dreading. I’d pick almost any other bodily infirmity over it.
I kept to my bed until I couldn’t any longer.
The trash can was my only option, because I could tell I would need the toilet as well. I tried to assure myself out loud.
“You’re going to be okay,” I whispered. “God, please make this quick.”
I remember the following in a blurry haze, but I remember Kendra (one of my new teammates/our team leader) at the door when it was over. She gave me water and rubbed my back when I sobbed like a baby. I knew I had most likely woken up my whole room (if not the whole compound) and I felt thoroughly disgusting.
“Don’t apologize. Deep breaths,” she reminded me.
She tied up the little bag in our trash can and returned with a new one. She also got a bucket for me. I’m not really sure of the order of those events, I just know she left our room more than anyone should have to at 2am.
She told me my immune system could’ve been down from a couple days ago (I was throwing up on Sunday, took a day off on Monday, felt and ate normally on Tuesday, and it was now Wednesday morning).
After I was situated, Kendra gently took hold of me.
“I love you,” she said with a kiss to the crown of my head (that was permanently fixed towards the white tile floor).
I told her I loved her too, and when she left, I prepared myself to throw up again. I was positive it was going to happen a couple times, but somehow, it didn’t. I felt very overheated, though. And I wasn’t confident enough to walk.
My teammates Maggie and Shea had cleaned our room the morning before, and the cold tile felt nice on my toes.
So, the floor it was!
I laid down. I marveled at my body cooling down, and how clean the tile was. So clean, I could see my reflection in it. A cold blue silhouette of my legs. My awkward not-short, but not-long hair, sticking up at random. Tired eyes.
Then the weirdest thing happened. Something I’m hoping writing about will help me understand a little better.
Open our eyes, to see the things that make your heart cry.
The lyric popped into my head, melody and all. The next lines I either don’t know as well, or my brain didn’t care to sing, because that line was stuck. in. my. head. I believe it’s from a song called With Everything. And the line is a request to the Lord.
As I stared at my reflection, I wondered, if it doesn’t please you to see me like this, are you trying to say this makes your heart cry? Do you see, even here? Even like this?
A week ago, I talked with Kendra about something I’ve been learning the whole race. In the past, I’ve struggled with relying too heavily on the love and acceptance of others, or the complete opposite in which I’ve struggled to let people love me in general. I’ve fought their acceptance and challenged their intentions. Learning my true identity and leaning on the Lord’s love for me has been not only challenging, but kind of exhausting. Letting go of deeply rooted lies and cutting off unhealthy thoughts and tendencies is a growing process. A growing process that my week of sickness rudely interrupted.
Do you see that too?
I woke up on the bathroom floor to Kendra’s voice.
“Rachel, you’ve been in here for an hour. I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable in your bed.”
I mumbled an explanation that I don’t really remember and crawled into bed.
Now, a week later, I’ve made a short list of things I know are certain in regards to this mess.
1. Romans 5:3-8 is true, and worth holding onto when not only I feel like I’m suffering, but when I feel unworthy of love and it’s source at the same time: “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
2. The past couple weeks has been one weird challenge after another. But Jesus has made it clear that carrying our cross, and enduring persecution and trials is something to not only be expected as we follow Jesus, but something to rejoice in: 1 Peter 4:12-13, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”
3. And as that lyric hinted to me on the bathroom floor, God isn’t a mean man in a white robe happily afflicting us. No, no. God doesn’t like to see us suffer. It’s a part of the brokenness in the world, and it’s a part of following Jesus, but heaven is where we’re heading, and like my throw-up episodes didn’t last forever, neither will suffering: 1 Peter 5:10, “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”
God opened my eyes this week to show me that this is a stretching time for my body and my friendships, but when I hurt, He sees. And He hurts with me. He knows pain and rejection better than anyone else. And with His help, I’m growing into someone stronger. He sent Kendra to show me tenderness and compassion at my worst and honestly most disgusting moments. He isn’t going to let me believe for one second that I’m alone, even when I want to try to do it alone. Even when I feel I am. Even when it’s all I can feel. I won’t believe it. Because the truth is, we’re never alone.
He could never leave us.
He will never leave us.
Even on a bathroom floor at 2:30am 🙂
