ToDaY i aM gRaTeFuL FoR mY HeaLtH

One time when I was little, I remember being very sick.  It was while we were on vacation at grandma’s house.  While all my cousins were out playing and swimming in the backyard, I was throwing up over and over again in the cold, dark back room.  It was horrible at the time, but looking back on it, it was actually a great memory, because I remember my sweet Uncle Dave taking care of me.  He and my grandpa gave me a blessing and then he brought over some books to read to me, and I’ll never, ever forget what he told me that day.  He said, “God gave us illnesses to help us learn patience.”

Yesterday was not a good day.  I had one of those 24-hour flu bugs, and it was BRUTAL.  I woke up at six in the morning and ran to the bathroom to throw up.  It was so unpleasant, especially because we ate at Wild Buffalo Wings the night before.  I don’t think I’ll be ordering the garlic parmesan wings again anytime soon.   This continued every 20 minutes for the next seven and a half hours.  The bed-to-bathroom dash started out as running, then turned into stumbling, and finally transitioned into exhaustedly crawling back and forth by the end of the day.  I took about four showers, because sitting in the hot water was the only thing that could distract me from the dizziness.  All of my bones ached like I’d been hit by a bus.  My temperature was over 100 and I lost five pounds in just one day.

I realized that I totally take for grated my health.  All the times where I do my day-to-day tasks without thinking, I don’t realize that things could be much worse.  There are people with poor health who have to deal with this kind of thing everyday, and I don’t even take a half a second to be thankful for my strength and positive condition.  Today I definitely feel grateful!

I’m also grateful for prayer. It got to the point where I wanted to cry because the vomiting made my ribcage hurt.  I said a prayer and asked that I wouldn’t throw up anymore.  And I stopped after that!  It was such a tiny thing, but I had such an overwhelming appreciation because of it. 

I’m grateful for yesterday.  I really am so lucky for how often I have great health and this definitely helped remind me.  It really does strengthen your patience and helps you remember  to count your blessings.