Vomiting With God
We were hit with the stomach bug this week. I was out to dinner with some dear friends, celebrating the end of a challenging year and thoroughly enjoying girls night, when I got the first call from the babysitter who said my daughter wasn’t feeling well. I talked to my daughter and encouraged her to have a few sips of seltzer water and go to bed, since it was way past her bedtime. I didn’t think much of it as this is the child who loves to stay up past her bedtime and chat with the sitter like the adult-child that she is. But, just after we ordered our food and were diving in to juicy details about our lives, the sitter called a second time to tell me that my daughter was throwing up. I could hear her in the background crying and asking for her momma and so I quickly left to take care of my girl.
When I got home, she came to me, looking pale and sickly and asked me to come lay with her in bed and so I did. As we lay there together, in between vomiting episodes, she begged me to pray for her- that she wouldn’t throw up anymore. She begged me not to leave her and to just be with her. We cried together through her pain and I gently rubbed her back. She cried and panicked and clung to me every time she felt another episode come over her. Eventually the episodes became fewer and farther between and she fell asleep. I was then able to go clean up the other areas in the house she had unleashed on while I was gone.
As I was cleaning I noticed that I was eager to care for my daughter and I became curious about why I felt joy instead of anger and frustration. I was cleaning puke while my friends were out to dinner enjoying a delicious, kid free meal, but yet I felt joy. It’s so unlike me as my natural tendency is to want to throw an adult sized temper tantrum when my plans don’t go accordingly. As I was cleaning up puke from baseboards in my home I’ve hardly seen before, God gently ministered to me.
He opened my eyes to see that this is my girl who is fiercely independent and rarely seeks comfort from me. In fact, she usually denies reliance on me. She is the child who sometimes makes me wonder if she even needs a mom (anyone else have one like that?). And God graciously revealed to me that he delights in the same opportunities with us- his children. He delights when we come to the end of ourselves, just as my girl had. He loves when we find comfort in him. He rejoices when we come to the realization that the richest life is the life dependent on him. He weeps with us when we weep, just as my heart was drawn to cry with my girl as she was suffering. He suffers with us in our suffering, just as naturally as every fiber of my momma body wanting nothing more than to lay down with my suffering daughter, rub her back and help her relax. He doesn’t need us to need him, but it brings him joy to care for his children, a similar joy to what I felt as I cared for my child who sought my comfort.
God didn’t answer our prayers. He allowed her to continue to get sick. In fact, he allowed the rest of our family to become sick as well. But what he also allowed was for me to experience his goodness for the first time in too long, after a year of wrestling through doubt and anger (did I mention my friends and I were celebrating the end of a challenging year?). Did I enjoy the aftermath of being so hands-on with my girl that I got sick too, ultimately causing me to get the stomach bug myself, suffer from a severe headache/body aches/chills/fever, missing a once-a-year class I was so excited to attend, and having to cancel the launch of our brand new connect group we’re hosting in our home? No. But did His goodness outweigh the brokenness of this world? Absolutely. The Lord was so kind to allow this opportunity to see more of Him, because I desperately need more of Him. The Lord deeply blessed me by reminding me that although the sufferings of this life are ever-present, deep and oh-so painful, they will be gone very soon (just as the stomach bug quickly comes and goes) and the joy & glory we’ll experience in eternity with our good Father will far outweigh the temporary suffering we experience here in this life on Earth.
I’m encouraged by what God’s word says will happen when we’re curious about him...
“I love those who love me, and those who diligently seek me will find me. Proverbs 8:17
But from there, you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. Deuteronomy 4:29
So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Luke 11:9-10
‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13
And so friends who, like me, also regularly reject the blessings God lavishes upon us, may we ask ourselves these questions today in hopes of allowing ourselves to let our guards down and just relax in the passenger’s seat knowing God is not only capable of being in the driver’s seat, but he’s the one who created the driver’s seat:
Do I believe God wants to care for me?
What would it feel like for me to accept His invitation to care for me?
How will my choice to believe God is caring for me right now change my heart towards him today?
Friends, God delights when we come to him, completely broken & desperate for Him. He desires for us to come to him with our fears and failures and longings so that he can give us comfort, rest, identity and the desires of our hearts. I’m so grateful for a Creator who is so patient & loving with me as I constantly try to pretend I’m fiercely independent, just as my own child does. I’m so grateful that when I’m at the end of my self-reliant rope he welcomes me with open arms and lays down with me in the mess. What a good Father.