breathe

hi, the last few days of my life have been especially crazy. let me fill you in. last week i began to really fill my days and make friends. the friends God DEFINITELY knew i needed, i had never experienced a loneliness quite like this one, and im sure the God who is all knowing knew the toll it was taking on my heart and mindset. on friday and saturday i was lucky enough to be invited to two birthday parties, and on sunday after church i went to dinner with a about 10 people from the church. those moments were so so special to me. on monday i went on a hike to a waterfall with a family closeby, i was starting to get the hang of my social life around here. Praise the Lord. however that monday night i started not feeling great, i thought it could just be a little sickness so i slept on it. but the next morning i woke up feeling the most miserable i had ever felt in my life. after trying to wait it out as long as i could i decided to go to the hospital. as you could imagine this situation escalated very very quickly. they put me on IV fluids and took my blood to be tested and after 5 hours of waiting, my blood test results came back testing positive for an infection in my blood. so what happened is that i got food poisoning, my immune system couldn’t regulate the infection itself and got overwhelmed, so that infection then got into my blood stream. nonetheless i survived, they gave me some antibiotics through my veins. and to be honest im very confused about the diagnosis i was given because it was all in a different language! but let me TELL YOU about how much Jesus came through in those long 8 hours in the hospital. because i know i would not be finding any joy in this trial if it weren’t for Him. allow me to share one of my biggest fears: needles. and when i say fear i mean TRIFLING fear. like if i know im going to go get a shot in two weeks i will cry every day in fear until then. true story by the way. well i had to be prodded 3 times with needles in this hospital. and as im about to get my blood drawn, im doing my normal procedure where i freak out and as i am overwhelmed by this fear, a mom who was sitting with her daughter walked over from across the room and held my hand. to give a little back story i did not know this woman, in fact i hadn’t even said a single word to her. but she was the hands and feet of Jesus to me in that moment. and my tears of fear quickly turned into tears of gratitude for a God who never expects me to have it all together. in fact i know for a fact that God wasn’t looking at me in that moment thinking to Himself “oh jeez claire get it together you’re a freaking adult for crying out loud.” that women reminded me that Jesus bent down to hold the hands of people who were frightened and became lowly to experience peoples suffering with them. and He didn’t do it with a sense of condemnation, but a sense of hope. and i don’t think that woman will ever know how much i deeply appreciated her in that moment. which leads me to my next point, i think i’ve discovered a lot about serving in these last few days. i’ve learned that sometimes serving looks like just showing up, or holding someone’s hand in their crisis, or even making a simple american dinner for the family you’re living with. serving can look like anything you do that points someone straight back to the heart of Jesus.