A few months ago, I moved to a new country with my husband and young son. We lived in a borrowed home for a couple months while looking for a long-term place to rent, and we were overjoyed when a beautiful home became available at the beginning of November. I had already signed up to begin classes at the beginning of November, too, so I was feeling overwhelmed that we had to move and I had to start classes at the same time. And then I got sick.
Right after we moved into our new home, and just a couple days before I was to start classes, I started feeling like something wasn’t right with my stomach. My husband made stuffed mushrooms for dinner, which tasted great, but the more I ate, the sicker I felt. I took some medication, but it made me feel worse. I started having terrible stomach pains, nausea, and then diarrhea. This lasted for four days.
I remember laying on the bathroom floor feeling like I was going to die because I couldn’t keep anything in my stomach. I started asking myself why we had come to this country. At least in my home country, I knew how to speak the language, where to buy medicine, and what to eat to feel better. If I was going to be sick for a week, I wanted to be sick in my own country instead of here in a new place. I didn’t even know any nurses or doctors in this country. I decided to send a message to my friend back home, a nurse, and asked her for advice.
While I was feeling disappointed and frustrated, I started to pray. I didn’t know if God cared about me being sick far away from home, but I felt it was worth a shot. I asked God to help me get better so I would be well enough to go to my class. Sometime after I finished praying, my friend the nurse sent me a reply telling me to get some rest. She said I had been through a lot with moving to a new country, then finding a house and moving there, then starting classes. Her encouragement to rest felt like God was answering my prayers.
I still wasn’t well enough to attend the first day or two of classes, but I was finally able to get the rest that I needed to heal and recover. I don’t know why I got sick or why I had to suffer, but this experience helped me understand that God does care about me being sick away from home, and he even uses people in our lives to encourage us. -Alex
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