For the past few days, my family has been dealing with a wave of gastroenteritis (aka “stomach flu”). Last Thursday at the office, I received a text message from my wife letting me know that our two-year-old daughter wasn’t feeling well. By Friday night, she had recovered, but that was when the same symptoms started for both my wife herself and our other daughter, who is eleven. Saturday morning, I awoke to find that my eldest had been throwing up all night and hardly slept. I skipped my morning routine so I could comfort and tend to her through the worst of it.
That afternoon, it was my turn to fall severely ill. I was convinced that, since I could not hold down water, what I needed to keep my condition from continuing to worsen was intravenous fluids.
A Quest for Hydration
My first inclination was to avoid having to navigate the state-medical complex by going to one of those “IV drip bars” that have become commonplace recently. But by the time I had that thought, all the nearby IV drip bars would be closed by the time I could get to them.
So my next best option was to try to get an IV hook-up from an urgent care location. Alas, the doctor at the urgent care facility near my home said I would need to go to the nearest hospital emergency department for that.
After jumping the triage hoops at the ER, I finally got my IV drip, along with some medications for my symptoms. But I had one more bout of torment to endure. I was exhausted, so I kept drifting off to sleep only to startle awake with chills, because the temperature in my room was kept so low. Tethered to the gurney, powerless to adjust the heat, and still suffering from my stomach ailment, I felt trapped and acutely anxious. But I finally got enough extra blankets from the nurses to alleviate my chills. And after the first of two IV bags, my symptoms and misery abated, just as I hoped. My improvement was evident enough that the hospital discharged me, and I was able to spend the rest of the night in my own bed with my own blankets and heaters.
I am grateful to all the medical professionals who helped me turn that corner that night.
The Inexhaustible Fountain
The next day (yesterday, which was a Sunday), my acute symptoms were still gone, but I felt weak, so I skipped my morning routine (including my morning publishing) a second day in a row. Unmoored from the habits I’ve been building, I felt unmotivated, out of control, and insecure. My physical ailment had led to an emotional and spiritual ailment.
However, I did manage to make it to church, which was crucial. The songs and the sermon spoke to my soul. I even got to see two baptisms: of a man and his daughter. And after the service, my “life group” prayed over what my family and I were going through. I dearly hope that whatever I had was not contagious at that point.
I felt that a stronger connection to the Holy Spirit was what I needed to spiritually rebound. So later that day, I searched YouTube for any videos recommending practices for being guided by the Holy Spirit and found a lecture series by Nancy Dufresne called "Following The Holy Spirit.”
In part one, Dufresne talked about a season in her life when she was going through trials, both physical and mental. She recounted how every morning, she would look to the Holy Spirit for guidance. Invariably, God would respond with what she called a “prescription”: a spiritual precept that addressed her greatest needs for that day. Either He would “quicken” a Bible verse to her or reveal to her soul some scripturally-aligned bit of wisdom. She would then write that prescription down and meditate on it throughout the day, so that her thoughts and conduct would be guided by it. Every morning, God would have “fresh manna” for her: up-to-date guidance for that day’s stage of her spiritual journey.
I tried Dufresne’s practice myself this morning, and it worked wonderfully. First God quickened to me “the great commandment”: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). Then, throughout the early morning, the Holy Spirit helped me to discover what specific implications of that I need to heed most given my specific recent hang-ups. This yielded the following maxim:
Fear not. Trust and obey.
I hope to unpack what exactly that means to me in a future post. For now, suffice it to say that meditating on that missive from the Holy Spirit has helped me get back on my feet mentally, emotionally, and spiritually today.
I walked out of the ER with multiple pharmaceutical prescriptions. I don’t plan on filling those, because now that I’ve gotten over the worst of it, all my body needs is further rest, hydration, and nourishment to fully recover.
But the prescriptions I will follow are the spiritual remedies I will receive from my new daily practice of seeking, meditating on, and following guidance from the Holy Spirit, aka “the Helper” and “the Counselor.”
My quest for physical hydration was successful. But more importantly, my family’s bout of illness prompted me to renew my connection to the inexhaustible fountain of spiritual nourishment that is the Holy Spirit: the person of God that indwells every believer in Christ.
Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive…
— John 7:37-39