If you’ve read the blog these past few days you know about my frustrating days in Nairobi (if not you can catch up here and here). Thursday I stayed home all day hoping the rest would do me good and get my neck, back, headache and digestive issues back to normal. Throughout the day I tried to do little things like washing dishes but then my stomach would not agree and I would have to lay back down. The neck and back began feeling better but than I started feeling lower back pain, the pain relative to where the kidneys are and started to wonder if this was really just from the drive to Nairobi and the stresses there.
The mind can play awful tricks on us and I couldn’t quite grasp the fact that my mind had manifested all these physical symptoms just from those stressful few days. Especially since the symptoms continued on even after I was back at home. When Chuck came home Thursday from Nairobi we discussed having me see the doctor on Friday for a malaria test…better safe than sorry and honestly I have not felt like this before.
Now that sounds like the correct action to take and I agree it was, but my fear of needles kicked in and my dislike of germs. I have never been seen, as a patient, by a doctor in a third-world country and I have heard some horror stories of some hospitals in our area. All that anxiety was now stacked on top of my feeling lousy. As I was sitting quietly I cried out to God (seems I’m doing a lot of that here in Kenya…hmmm is there a connection there?). My prayer was, yes I wanted His will be done but I was afraid of what that entailed…suffering, pain, anguish? Yes His grace is sufficient, yes He only allows what we can bear, yes He has gotten me through much worse but I was totally honest with my Creator. Even though He already knew what I was thinking it lifted my spirit to communicate that to Him in my own words. To be so painfully honest and say Your will be done but I’m oh so frightened of where that is going to take me was, I believe, exactly what God wanted to hear from me.
Friday morning dawned early as my neck was aching but once I got up my stomach told me to lay back down. During my attempt to go back to sleep I prayed the same prayer, I had no idea what I really wanted but I knew I wanted God’s will be done and just trusting that all would be well with God in control.
Chuck organized for the doctor to come to the house to do the blood test hoping to alleviate some of my fears (good try dear!). Once he arrived my blood pressure went up and my palms started sweating in anticipation of the needle, even though the test is like a diabetes test just a finger prick for blood. He did the test, put the blood smear on the slide, stuck it in an envelope and took it back to his office to test for the malaria parasite. I have to admit even thinking of a parasite in my blood gave me creeps too.
After the doctor left and we were talking with Pauline I suddenly realized my headache was gone, my aches were gone and I was hungry! So when the doctor called about 1/2 hour later to say there was no malaria I realized God had healed me. I can’t prove to anyone that I actually had malaria since the test came back negative, but I know God did a miracle. I spent the afternoon thanking God for health and for His compassion in listening to a scared, helpless daughter in her time of learning to, once again, give it to God.