The Epiphany in the Illness

I had an epiphany today. I do not use that word lightly. I mean to say I had an insight today that was beyond what I'm normally capable of understanding. It happened after I took Doug, my youngest, to the doctor. 

Let me set the scene. 

My entire family had the stomach flu over the past couple of weeks. We seem to get the stomach flu around the same time of year. (Thanks, Timehop, for helping me map that accurately.)

Bekah fell victim first and had it the worst. The morning she ended up in the ER, Doug got sick for the first time. After I left for the hospital, I tried to have Brian keep me updated about Doug. By Wednesday, it seemed like he was done with it. Thursday dawned and Brian started with the stomach flu. Doug must've been sick on Wednesday because I didn't send him to school on Thursday. Thursday night Jeremy started with the flu. 

I lost track of things from then because both Brian and Jeremy were sick and all I was doing was cleaning up vomit and taking care of all the things. 

Doug seemed fine by Saturday because I took him to my parents' house. Sunday morning, he threw up and had diarrhea. Monday he was fine. Tuesday he was mostly fine. Wednesday morning he woke up with vomit and diarrhea, then threw up yesterday afternoon. This morning, a morning I had anticipated for a long time, he woke up again with vomit and diarrhea. 

Sorry for the graphic description. I am just trying to establish that his illness was intermittent. It seemed to be different from the thing that afflicted the rest of the family. I was afraid his reflux was back. 

Today, I took him to the doctor. I had had enough. The laundry has been insurmountable. The smells have been obnoxious. I just couldn't take it. 

The doctor confirmed that he is fighting the same bug. She told me that it's been so prolonged because his diet has been keeping his intenstines irritated. We needed to restrict his food intake to let everything calm down. 

Now, this made sense to me. The juice (watered down) that Doug has been drinking, the chicken nuggets (Kirkland, baked in the oven), the peanut butter, etc., all of it was causing him to suffer longer. 

The problem is that I am 36. I have advanced reasoning abilities and some amount of logic. 

My 3-year-old lacks all of those skills. 

He told me, quite plaintively, "I still hungry. I want chicken nuggets." It was heartbreaking, because I couldn't give him what he wanted, things that aren't inherently bad, because they weren't good for him at the moment. I wasn't telling him he could never have these things. I was saying, "these things will hurt you if you have them now. I know you want them and I want to give them to you, but if I do that I will be causing you more pain and suffering."

There was the epiphany. 

See, I have been asking God for things quite plaintively for some time. Things that aren't inherently bad, like a new and better job for my husband (for example). 

God's sense of logic and reasoning is probably like mine compared to my 3-year-olds. Far advanced and beyond my understanding. I heard him today, saying, "Sue, I know you want these things. I know they seem like good things. If I give them to you now, they will hurt you. I have to wait until the time is right to give them to you." (I don't know that the things would hurt me per Se, but I hope I'm conveying the gist; that the right gifts at the wrong time would not benefit me correctly.)

If I were anyone else, I would say that the message was well-received in a mature manner. I would say, "oh, yes, Lord, now I get it. I'm totally fine with waiting because I see you've got a whole thing going."

The truth is I had a 3-year-old-sized tantrum. I vented to my husband that I didn't understand why we kept having to deal with this stuff, with this illness, with these difficulties. (As an aside, I was also frustrated because in the course of the chaotic morning I left my Costco card at home and had to take more time to get home and I hadn't eaten all morning.)

I am grateful for the insight, though. It doesn't make me happier to wait necessarily, but it is something I would had missed had it not been for crappy circumstances (literally). 

My hope is that Doug's illness clears up in the next day or so. I postponed Bekah's birthday party to shield her guests from this thing. I am hoping that once it's done with Doug, it's done for good. Then I can say goodbye to it for the next 345 or so days. Until then...