malade

I have never been that sick in my life. 4:30 yesterday morning I woke up and barfed my guts out. Every 30 minutes after that the contents of my stomach was emptied into the toilet, every 30 minutes whether there was anything in it or not. The wave of nausea would come and I would dive for the bathroom. At 7:00 a housemate came down to shower and found me in the bathroom dry heaving. When I got back to my spot on the couch, she sat and prayed with me for a bit. By 9:30 my housemate Chara and one of theg girls I’ve been discipling, Murielle, came and sat with me, and my housemate left to go buy some food for sick people: gingerale, popsicles, crackers, etc.

Eventually I went up to my housemates room because she has a bathroom off of it. I laid there on her bed with music playing in the background, my friend sitting beside the bed reading Psalm 119. I was in so much pain. My body hurt everywhere, I was nauseous, I couldn’t move or else I would vom everywhere. It seriously felt like I was lying on my deathbed as Murielle read the Word. It was so perfect. As morbid as it sounds, I concluded that that is how I want to go: with my friends around not weeping or being sad about my death, but praising God.

I felt like I was reenacting the movie Wit. It's about an english Professor who teaches a course on John Donne's metaphysical poetry and how she is diagnosed with cancer and undergoes serious chemotherapy. No one comes to visit her because they're so intimidated by her. The only person who seems to care about her is her nurse. This exceptional woman,who has the hardest course in the whole school, who has never been vulnerable with anyone in her life. There she lies on her hospital bed, a shell of a woman, desperately afraid of her next dose of chemo because of what it does to her body. Her nurse comes in and they share a popsicle, as if she were a child again.

It was like that. Me lying on the bed, disgusting, sweaty, greasy, unshowered, and smelly, feeling like I was barely alive. While Murielle kept reading, Chara and Sim were there. It was so difficult for me to let them love me like that -- I had spent the entire year in conflict with them in various ways and it was only last week that I had finally apologized . And there they were, loving me while I was so undeserving. And it occurred to me, my pride has created a shield around me so that I really have a difficult time accepting people's forgiveness and grace. It physically hurt for them to touch me, and it hurt my pride to let them touch me. But I had to let them serve me, because no one else was offering (no one else really knew I was sick, though).

After they left I finally was able to get to sleep for a bit, and then the rest of the evening I was in an out of sleep until finally I slept through the night. Today has been better, but my stomach has still been seriously sore. But the worst of it is over. Thankfully.