Stomach Flu & The Gospel

I had the displeasure of having the stomach flu shortly after Easter.

You know how when you have the stomach flu you kind of just want to die?

Okay, maybe that's being dramatic. But you're probably lying if you don't agree that at one point or another while caught up in the nausea, deliriousness, and cold sweats you've thought "It would probably be okay if this was the end, I'm done".

It all turns around on the blessed day when you start to feel better. When you realize, 'hey, I kept this food down for 12 hours'. The first day that you really feel normal is amazing. Normal has a whole new meaning- it's full of life and energy and joy.  You feel as if you have new life.


You're probably wondering what this has to do with the gospel.

This is what God does for us. He draws us out of our misery, despair, and hopelessness and makes us new. We have new life in him. In Jesus' death and resurrection, he conquered the evil things that overtake us. He suffered and died, and then rose again with new life- so we too may walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). May we always celebrate and feel abundantly filled with new life, as much as we do on that first day we feel normal again after the stomach flu!

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. -Psalm 40:2

I was joking about this metaphor with my husband, and he painted a picture of a caretaker going to find their sicky in bed, and finding empty blankets and an empty puke bowl. "She is not here! She is risen."

May we be risen with Christ out of our darkness (and stomach flu) and into his endless light and life!

 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
-Ephesians 2: 4-10


Please forgive me for using vulgar things like vomit and dog poop to share the gospel! It was actually a dog poop story that originally inspired me enough to start blogging... goodness, I am weird.

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