The Ups and Downs of Being Sick

Studying: Isaiah 32-34, Psalm 79
Memorizing: Romans 1:1-32
Thoughts: Good

I have a cold right now, and all my life, as far as I can remember, I've never just had a small cold. I like to do them right, uncontrollable coughing, sneezing fits, sore throats, aches, pains, not sleeping. I like to get colds that laugh at every medicine on the market. Most people have them for two weeks; I keep them around for a month, and usually I top off the whole experience with another 6 weeks of a lingering wheeze in my chest.

But in my humble opinion there are some positives and negatives to being sick. Now, some may think I'm crazy, and want to ask "What in the world is there positive about it?" Well, let me qualify that statement. First of all, I'm not talking about serious sickness, i.e. cancer, infections, flu. I'm mainly looking at colds, bugs and little things that come and go. Yes, I realize that even those things can be serious for some people, but I'm mainly looking at this from my own personal experience. But I think there are some positives and negatives. Let me explain.

On the negative side there's all of the obvious things, the bad symptoms, the not sleeping well, the feeling miserable in the morning. That goes without saying. Being sick is no fun. So what in the world could be positive? Well, in my adult years I've noticed that sickness seems to always come when I've been needing to stop, but just wouldn't do it. I tend to get sick when I've been going, going, going and haven't been able to breathe. Being sick suddenly becomes a mandatory break.

In our context over here in Russia, colds are not taken as lightly as they are in the States. I started coming down sick Friday afternoon. I had been planning to help out with some singing at a conference here in town. I called the guy in charge telling him I couldn't make it Friday afternoon, but would try on Saturday. He said "No, you're sick, you don't need to come." In the end I was glad, because I felt pretty bad on Saturday. We stayed home from church Sunday because Cristy was coming down sick too. As a result she canceled her lesson on Monday and stayed home. Cristy's Russian teacher is good friends with mine, and therefore my teacher called me today telling me that she didn't want to come over if I was sick, and probably not on Thursday either. Tonight Cristy's teacher called her and told her not to come to her lesson tomorrow also.

It's funny, if I had a regular 8-5 job in the States I would have been back to work today, but over here people are practically begging you to stay away from them. But as I said, there is a positive to all of this. Even though we haven't felt very well, we've been able to just be home with one another, be quiet and just enjoy some time to read and do other things. It's a strange sort of blessing.