Stupid Rock

It's December 27th, two days have passed since Christmas.  There are still cookies lurking in the kitchen, a box I just noticed peeking from beneath the sofa, and of course the tree is still shining bright.  But it's rainy and gray, Reagan left early this morning and will be gone for the night, and while the to-do-list exist, it wasn't overwhelming lengthy and so I laid in bed all morning.  A simple luxury that will last only a few more weeks, considering my little bundle, that was kicking away while I snuggled in bed, will actually be in my arms in just a few weeks.

It's now 2 in the afternoon and after eating some cereal, reading a few books to my peanut and diving into a new book of my own while curled up under the new Steelers blanket, answering a few e-mails and carrying a load of laundry to the basement...I sit here in my pj's (which I rarely do, I'm usually an up and at em' let's look ready for the day kinda girl) with a blank computer screen staring at me.  The book I found myself diving into this morning wasn't one of those feel good books, a Christmas novel, or even a biography.  It was one of those that cut you open, make you think, challenge and maybe even cause a tear or two.  It got me thinking about a lot of things...thoughts I hope to be able to share through a story. But first let me share with you 2 excerpts I loved from this book.

"The beautiful thing about opting for God is that you are opting for everything He brings. Because He is infinite, you will never reach the end of all He offers of Himself. Nothing on earth is like fully engaging with God. Nothing. Once you taste it, nothing in the physical realm can touch it, yet everything in the physical realm takes on brilliant color because of it.  God's love is better than life. No one compares."

"God wants everything you've got. Uncontested priority. Every egg in one basket. All your weight on one limb. This very moment he has His fingers gripped on your chin, saying, "Right here, Child. Look right here. Don't look right or left. Stare straight into my face. I am your Deliverer. There is no one like Me." God will be your complete Deliverer or nothing at all.

-Beth Moore: Get Out of that Pit

Now before I begin the story, let me give you a frame of reference as when this happened, it was 2 years ago in January :)

I was sure someone had shoved a dagger in the right side of my back. That's what it felt like, not that I had ever been stabbed before. There was severe pain in my right side that was not subsiding no matter which way I laid or sat or bent over.  Between the violent vomiting, shaking and light headiness the stabbing pain persisted. I slowly reached for my cell phone, trying not to move, and simply texted...please come home now. He knew when I talked to him earlier that I wasn't feeling the best, but minutes after hanging up the phone the pain escalated.

Reagan, came home right away and while he wasn't exactly sure what was happening he suspected I had  a kidney stone...so that meant a trip to the ER.  He knew I was in serious pain because when he said, "Let's go", I didn't respond like I normally would with, "Ok, give me a minute I need to put on different shoes", or "let me brush my teeth quick and grab my lip gloss." Nope...I started right out the door with disheveled hair, and a bare face while wearing sweats and pink slippers.  This was serious.  I sat in the front of our little white Volvo with my head between my legs, grasping my side, never looking up once to see where were were in our travels.  We didn't talk. He just needed to get me to the ER.

Well in attempts to make a long story shorter, after a couple test it was confirmed that I was severely dehydrated, which after vomiting everything that was in the pits of me, I wasn't surprised and that yes, indeed, I had a kidney stone.  How did this happen?  My only reference to kidney stones was that drinking excessive amounts of tea could cause them. I drank sweet tea on occasion, but I wasn't a raging tea addict. Not like the kids I went to high school with that drank so much iced tea their noses would bleed. Those were the kidney stone candidates. Not me.  But for whatever reason I had developed a kidney stone, which is simply a small granule of matter that escapes your kidney and moves into your ureter, which is not a tube like you may think, but is more like a thin ribbon. That tiny "stone" becomes a major irritant, and irritant is putting it mildly.  I had never felt pain like that before, now mind you I haven't experienced child birth yet, I'll get back to you on that in a few weeks :)

While laying in the hospital bed feeling like a bloated toad because of the EIGHT IV's of fluid they pumped into me I started a conversation with the Lord.  Or maybe the Lord started the conversation with me.  Either way, when you are in the pursuit of Him, and are looking for opportunities to hear His voice and be a student of His wisdom, He will speak.  And I've found as easy as it is to listen, it's just as easy to turn the volume down too. I've done both. Anyway, I started thinking about that morning when the pain set in how I could not think about anything or anyone but myself. I wanted to go meet my friend Mary for lunch that day, I wanted to take care of business I had set aside to do...but I couldn't.  I was consumed by the physical pain. The physical pain caused by this little 1/2 millimeter rock that was in my ureter. Stupid rock.

I started to ponder over what other stupid rocks I had in my life.  Did I have any other irritants, maybe not physical ones, but what about mental or emotional irritants that whether I had realized it or not would turn me inward, becoming selfish, rather than thinking about others, would keep me searching for my own answers rather than the Lord's.  We've all probably had them.  The irritants of doubt, poor self-image, fear, jealousy, bitterness, comparison, lust, anger...the list could go on and on.  These are all  irritants, maybe they even start out small, but once they move from your head into your heart, a place where those irritants are not meant to exist they cause pain, so much pain that we find ourselves living for no one other than ourselves and that pain.

So for the next few days I had to pea in a strainer, interesting to say the least.  Every time I went to the bathroom they looked for that little stone.  Now you must know I did have a night time nurse that "accidentally" threw out a few urine samples, so who knows if I passed that little rock, if it broke up into smaller pieces that you wouldn't be able to see with the naked eye, or maybe they injected me with so much fluid it was overtaken and dissolved...who knows?  But either way the irritant was removed. No more pain. I could go on living. I could think about other things and other people. I could reschedule that lunch and get back to business, while taking it easy over the next few days.

A hospital visit may not be the answer to the passing of your little stone, your irritant if you will...in fact, it's probably not the necessary remedy, but it may require forgiveness of yourself or someone else, a conversation with that person you've rejected, severing a tie to temptation, confessing your weakness, getting uncomfortable, facing the reality of decisions, or taking a stand rather than a seat to your irritant. It will REQUIRE ingesting God's truth and choosing faith over fear, and looking in the mirror and believing that He made you, loves you and wants all of you.

I didn't feel like myself for the next few days, my side felt bruised and sore...so let me warn you bruising and soreness may be side effects to the passing of your "irritant" too. It's not always easy, but it's necessary. It's worth it.  Sometimes you can even become so familiar with the pain of your irritant, that you choose to live with it...but it will always steal away.  "Passing" it is not easy, but when you do it allows you to really love your life and the people in it...and in turn life and those people will love you back.  Most importantly God's love that had never failed, even while your irritant was "flaring" up, has taken it's place and is bigger, bolder and brighter. And now our irritant, our sin.. is no longer just behind our backs, but its behind God's. That stupid rock is behind His back...

Isaiah 38:17
"Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish.
In your LOVE you kept me from the pit of destruction;
you have put all my sins behind YOUR back."