Hidden Benefits of the Stomach Flu

If you have been following my posts, you see that very often I blog about the goodness of God in everyday life situations.  Today will be no exception.  Let’s get right into this one, and for lack of knowing differently we will call it stomach flu.  It literally has been 30 years since I had the flu.  I don’t get a flu shot, I simply manage not to catch the flu. 

I can remember, 30 years ago, my daughter was about a month old and I came down with the flu.  It was miserable stuff, I remember being colder than I ever was in my life.  It was like someone ran ice water through my veins.  There were some things I was not grateful for then that I am now.  I will get into that in a little bit.

I came home from work recently not feeling great, but I attributed it to the lemon juice diet I was on as I was trying to lose a few pounds.  I got spaghetti sauce cooking on the stove, (my husband watched it as it simmered) while he prepared the rest of our meal and I took a nap before dinner.  He woke me up and we ate dinner.  That lemon juice really didn’t sit well, well now neither did the spaghetti.  Little did I know, I would see it again. 

As I sat in front of the toilet wishing this would go away I thought of some very different things.  Thank you, God, for running water and the ability to get rid of the evidence.  Thank you for the bathroom rug I get to kneel on, instead of the hard floor.  Thank you for the thermostat that I can simply adjust and suddenly it’s warmer in the house.  Thank you for the fuel oil that keeps it working.  Thank you for the money to pay for the fuel oil.  Thank you for clean fleece sheets, extra socks and pajamas.  Thank you for electricity as I can tell what time it is all night as I make my hourly visits to the bathroom.  Yes, that was sarcasm, but seriously, I had light, it was safe and clean and about 15 feet away and there was no waiting.  Thank you for the emergency bucket in case the trip was too long. 

I didn’t feel like eating, watching TV, listening to music, looking at my smart phone, reading, etc. but all those luxuries were available to me.  Yes, they are luxuries, even if I often take them for granted.   Thirty years ago, I was grateful my daughter did not catch the flu.  And I was grateful for living through the illness.  I’m still grateful for those things and realized I had learned more in the last 30 years.  Thank you, God.

I love Corrie Ten Boom’s book, The Hiding Place, where she chronicles what life was like in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.  Here I was laying in my warm bed and I was feeling very ill.  I could not imagine dealing with the horrendous living conditions in the concentration camp while I was healthy much less if I were sick. Yet Corrie, with her sister Betsy’s help, found a way to be grateful.  I’m not sure 30 more years will do it for me to ever reach that plateau. 

  

A couple extra things I learned.  I need to chew my food better (enough said).  Maybe then I won’t need the lemon juice diet.  I am already more sympathetic to people suffering with physical illness.  It’s amazing what a personal refresher course will do for you.  And I likely lost some of the weight I was trying to…lemon juice or stomach flu; it seems the outcome is the same.  And thank you, God, for a sense of humor and more insight into what really matters.